GIFT   OF 
W.   H.   Smyth 


A  VISION   OF    INDIA 


Mr.  JOHN  MORLEY,  in  his  Indian  Budget  Speech 

in  the  House  of  Commons,  July  20,  1906,  said  : 

'  One  of  the  books  about  India  which  I  would  respectfully 
recommend  hon.  members  to  read  is  by  Mr.  Sidney 
Low — a  gentleman  of  proved  competence  in  politieal 
subjects.  Mr.  Low  is  a  man  who  knows  what  he  is 
writing  about.' 

LORD  CURZON,  in  a  Speech  at  the  New  Vagabond 
Club,  May  15,  1906,  said: 

'  Mr.  Sidney  Low,  the  author  of  that  interesting  book, 
"A  Vision  of  India,"  has  succeeded  in  giving  a  striking 
picture  of  Indian  life  under  many  of  its  varied  aspects, 
which  I  believe  to  be  substantially  accurate,  and  which 
is  clearly  the  result  of  much  acute  observation  and  pene- 
trating insight.' 

SIR  CHARLES  CROSTHWAITE,  K.C.S.I.,  late 
Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North-West  Pro- 
vinces, and  Member  of  the  Indian  Council,  says: 

'  Full  of  information  in  a  picturesque,  shape  on  the 
forms  and  problems  of  Indian  life— altogether  a  remarkable 
book.' 


SIR  DONALD  ROBERTSON,  K.C.S.I.,  formerly 
of  the  Indian  Political  Department  and  Resident 
in  Mysore,  says : 

'  I  would  especially  exempt  from  the  circle  of  unreliable 
critics  the  talented  writer  of  "  A  Vision  of  India."  I  do  not 
know  Mr.  Sidney  Low ;  but  for  a  clever  and  moderate 
account  of  India  and  its  peculiarities,  I  have  never  read 
anything  more  interesting  and  entertaining. ' 


)     )     )    5     1 


)    1    )    >    ) 
))))) 


PAST   AND    PRESENT: 


THE    PRINCE    AND    PRINCESS    OF   WALES    AT    THE 
KUTAB    MINAR,    NEAR    DELHI. 

[See  page  164. 


A 

VISION    OF    INDIA 


BY 

SIDNEY  LOW 


*      •       so*  •» 

B        •      »  "       O  JO 


:•  o  •     .  »■* 

B "        >        t      i  J 


WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS    FROM   PHOTOGRAPHS 
BY  THE  AUTHOR    AND    OTHERS 


NEW  YOEK :   B.  P.  DUTTON   &  COMPANY 
LONDON:    SMITH,  ELDER,  &  CO 
1907 


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1101 


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•  •     •  • «  • 


•  •    •  •    •  « i  c  ', 

•  *  ••  •    •  • 


PBEFACE 


The  materials  on  which  the  following  pages  are  founded 
were  collected,  for  the  most  part,  during  the  progress  of 
the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales  through  the  Empire 
of  India,  which  I  was  permitted  to  accompany  as  Special 
Correspondent  of  the  Standard,  in  the  autumn  and  winter 
of  1905  and  the  spring  of  the  following  year.  Of  this 
interesting  journey  much  might  be  written  from  the 
personal,  the  political,  and  the  purely  pictorial  side.  It  is 
not,  however,  with  these  matters  that  I  am  chiefly  con- 
cerned. I  deviated  rather  frequently  from  the  route  of 
the  royal  travellers,  since  it  was  my  object  to  give  some 
general  idea  of  the  conditions  of  life  and  society  prevailing 
in  India,  rather  than  to  furnish  a  circumstantial  record  of 
the  tour,  or  to  describe  in  detail  those  places  of  historical, 
antiquarian,  and  aesthetic  interest  which  were  included 
in  the  official  itinerary.  It  has  been  my  aim  to  reproduce 
something  of  the  impression  which  our  vast  and  varied 
dominion  of  the  East — almost  a  world  in  itself — leaves  on 
the  mind,  in  its  splendour  and  its  contradictions,  its 
colour  and  its  mystery,  its  wealth  and  poverty,  its  medley 
of  classes,  creeds,  and  peoples :  to  hint  at  a  few  of  the 
absorbing  problems  suggested  by  the  contemplation  of 
this  strange  and  fascinating  amalgam.  I  hope  that  my 
survey,  partial  and  incomplete  as  it  may  be,  will  not 
mislead  those  who  know  India  only  from  hearsay  and 


M97463 


VI  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

from  books,  and  that  it  may  even  contain  some  things 
which  may  be  deemed  worth  consideration  by  those 
who  have  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  our  Asiatic 
Dependency. 

I  left  India  with  a  grateful  sense  of  the  kindness  and 
courtesy  which  I  received  everywhere,  both  when  I 
was  with  the  Koyal  party  and  when  I  was  travelling 
alone.  From  the  late  and  the  present  Viceroy  and  the 
Commander-in-Chief  downwards,  the  officers  of  all 
branches  of  the  civil  and  military  services  seemed 
anxious  to  assist  the  inquirer  and  to  supply  him  with 
authentic  information.  I  can  do  no  more  than  return 
my  thanks  in  general  terms  to  the  numerous  Anglo- 
Indians,  whether  they  were  civilians,  officers  of  the 
headquarters  staff  and  of  our  native  regiments,  lawyers, 
police  superintendents,  journalists,  or  men  of  business, 
who  placed  the  results  of  their  accumulated  experience, 
and  sometimes  also  the  resources  of  their  offices,  bunga- 
lows, and  camps,  so  generously  at  my  disposal.  I  owe 
much  to  the  ladies  who  assisted  me  to  obtain  some  in- 
sight into  the  conditions  of  domestic  life :  much  also  to 
my  Indian  friends,  of  the  Hindu,  Mohammedan,  and  Parsi 
communities,  through  whose  courtesy  I  was  enabled  to 
gain  a  better  idea,  than  would  have  been  possible  without 
their  aid,  of  the  opinions  held  by  many  educated  and 
influential  natives  on  various  questions  of  importance. 
If  I  forbear  to  make  more  precise  acknowledgment,  it 
is  because  the  catalogue  would  run  beyond  due  limits 
were  it  to  include  the  names  of  all  those  who  helped 
to  make  my  Vision  of  India  pleasant  and  did  their  best 
to  render  it  fruitful. 

S.  L. 

May  1906. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
AT  THE  SEAWAKD  GATE 

PAGK 

Eastward  Bound— The  Solvent  of  Climate— The  Light  of  Asia— The 
Harbour  of  Bombay — First  Impressions— A  Biot  of  Colour — The 
Island  City— At  the  Yacht  Club— The  Native  Bazaar— Types  of 
the  People— The  Feast  of  Lanterns 

CHAPTER   II 

STUDIES  IN  CONTRASTS 

The  Prince  in  Bombay— Native  Loyalty — A  Varied  Day — Earl's  Court 
and  the  Arabian  Nights— Government  House— Cockneydom  in  the 
East— The  Crowd — Sleeping  in  Public—'  Slumming '      .        .        .17 

CHAPTER  III 

BOMBAY :  THE  WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN 

The  European  Community — Some  Amenities  of  Life — On  Malabar 
Hill — Paradise  Lost — The  Encroaching  Native  — « Crowded  Out ' — 
Hewers  of  Wood  and  Drawers  of  Water — '  You  English  are  a 
Curious  People ' — The  Division  between  the  Races — A  Native  Point 
of  View — The  Parsis — A  Question  of  Nomenclature — A  Social 
Grievance  .  .  31 

CHAPTER  IV 
AT  THE  MILLS 

Manufactures  in  India — New  and  01  — At  Cawnpore — Modern  Ma- 
chinery—The Hand-loom  Weaver— A  Bombay  Cotton-mill— The 
Factory -hands— The  Hours  of  Labour— Some  Revelations— Child- 
workers— Difficulties  of  Inspection— A  Fourteen-hours  Day    .        ,      51 


Viii  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

CHAPTER  V 
IN  CAMP 

PAGF. 

Life  under  Canvas— At  its  Best  in  India — My  Tent — A  Royal  Camp — 
Camping  a  Normal  Phase  of  Indian  Life — The  Official  Tour — 
Man-power  and  Beast-power — The  Human  Machine      ...      CI 

CHAPTER  VI 

ON  THE  LINE 

Railway-travelling  in  India — First  Class— Luggage  Unlimited — Im- 
possibility of  Travelling  Light — Facilities  of  Transport — The 
Native  Passenger — His  Delight  in  Railway  Journeys — The  Sewing- 
machine  and  the  Kerosene-lamp — Waiting  at  the  Station — In  a 
Third-class  Carriage .        .73 

CHAPTER  VII 

MEDIAEVAL  INDIA 

The  Vastness  of  India — Not  a  ■  Country '  but  a  Continent — The 
Analogy  of  Europe — Variety  of  Peoples,  Types,  Creeds,  and  Cli- 
mates— From  the  West  Coast  to  Central  India  -The  Rajputs — 
Their  History  and  Characteristics — Remnants  of  Feudalism — A 
Warrior  Race 87 

CHAPTER  VIII 
SOME  RAJPUT  CAPITALS 

Udaipur,  the  City  of  the  Enchanted  Lakes— Fairyland — An  Illumina- 
tion— The  Lands  of  the  Bible  and  the  Romances — Jodhpur  the 
Mediaeval — The  Marwaris — A  Centre  of  Sport— Sir  Pertab  Singh — 
The  Bazaar  and  the  Mint — The  '  Bovine  '  Species — Bikaner  — 
A  Palace  in  a  Desert— The  Rose-red  City  of  Jaipur — Jai  Singh — 
An  Early  Municipal  Reformer— Pasteboard  and  Paint — The  Royal 
Mena  erie — Fighting  Animals 95 

CHAPTER  IX 
HIS  HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA 

A  Miscellaneous  Collection — The  Virtuous  and  the  Unvirtuous  Raja— 
The  Practices  of  the  Latter— How  Dealt  with— A  little  Incident 
during  the  Royal  Tour— The  Progressive  Princes— Their  Reforms— 


CONTENTS  IX 

PAGE 

Sometimes  Expensive— The  Loyalty  of  the  Feudatories— And  its 
Qualifications— Their  Armies— The  Imperial  Service  Corps- 
Attitude  of  the  Government  towards  them— The  Rendition  of 
Mysore—  Some  Grievances  of  the  Ruling  Chiefs— The  ■  Politicals  ' .     117 


CHAPTER  X 

ON  THE  FRONTIER 

The  Indian  Populations  generally  Peaceable — Smallness  of  our  Armed 
Force— The  Borderland— The  Hill  Tribes— The  Disturbed  District 
— Peshawar— The  Wardens  of  the  Marches— The  Khyber— The 
Prince  and  Princess  in  the  Pass — Landi  Kotal,  the  Last  Outpost 
of  the  Empire 137 

CHAPTER  XI 
SEPOY  AND   SOWAR 

The  Indian  Army — The  Officers— A  Hardworking  Profession — The 
Fighting  Races — Sikhs,  Pathans,  Gurkhas  and  Punjabi  Moham- 
medans—The Native  Soldier — The  Silladar  System— A  Recruiting 
Difficulty— The  Remedy 15 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  CITIES  OF  THE   MOGHULS 

From  the  Frontier  to  the  Northern  Plains— Delhi  and  its  Memories— 
A  Cemetery  of  Cities— The  Tombs  of  the  Moslems— Hodson  and 
the  Moghul  Princes— The  Ridge  and  the  Mutiny— John  Nicholson 
—The  New  Delhi— The  Dead  City  of  Fatehpur  Sikri— Its  Origin— 
The  Shrine  of  the  Saint  and  the  Gate  of  Victory— The  Palaces  of 
Akbar— The  Taj  Mahal  at  Agra— An  American  Tribute— First  Im- 
pressions of  the  Taj— The  Interior— The  View  from  the  Gardens— 
A  Nocturne— Symbolism  of  the  Taj  Mahal— Shah  Jehan       .        .    1C3 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  BLOSSOMING  OF  THE  WILDERNESS 

In  an  Irrigation  Colony— Miracles  Wrought  by  Water  and  Brains— 
What  We  have  Done  for  India— The  Canal  System— Plantation 
Colonies— The  Head  of  the  District— Among  the  Colonists    ,        .    }83. 


X  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

CHAPTER  XIV 
THE   PILGRIM  FAIR 

PAttK 

The  Kumbh  Mela  at  Allahabad— Indian  Pilgrimages— Church  Festival 
and  Popular  Holiday— The  Sacred  Rivers— The  Priests  and  As- 
cetics— Cholera— With  a  Police-officer— A  Sikh  Service— A  Day  of 
Processions — Some  Curious  Scenes— The  March  of  the  Akharas— 
A  Strange  Company— Possibilities  of  Disorder— At  the  Meeting  of 
the  Waters— Elephants  on  Strike—'  Rather  a  Crowd  '    .        .        .193 


CHAPTER  XV 
BENGAL  AND  BABUDOM 

Calcutta— Its  Monuments — The  English  Atmosphere — From  Charnock 
to  Curzon — Hastings— Macaulay — The  Old  Merchant-Princes — 
Native  Calcutta — At  the  Altar  of  Kali — The  Bengali — His  Clever- 
ness— And  His  Limitations — The  Babu — Unpopular  but  very 
Useful— The  Failed  B.A.— The  Charge  of  Cowardice— Probably 
Exaggerated— Rural  Bengal    ....  ...    211 


CHAPTER  XVI 
IN   THE   SOUTHLAND 

North  and  South — The  Seat  of  our  Empire — Where  English  is  Spoken 
— A  Pleasant  Country — The  '  Real  India  ' — '  The  Palms  and 
Temples  of  the  South' — Madras — Not  Backward  or  Effete— Its 
Attractions — The  Immortal  Name  of  Clive 229 


CHAPTER  XVII 
GOLD  AND  WATER-POWER 

In  Mysore— Seringapatam— On  the  Road  to  Sivasamudram— A  Native 
Vehicle— At  the  Power-station— The  Falls  of  the  Cau very— America 
in  Asia— Siva  or  Schenectady  ? — The  Kolar  Gold-fields — A  Well- 
managed  Mining  Settlement— Prosperity  and  Good  Order— Modern 
Processes  and  Arrangements — A  Mronad         ,        .        .        .        .     238 


CONTENTS  XI 

CHAPTEE  XVIII 
HINDUISM  AND  THE   CASTES 

PAGE 

The  Caste-system— Its  Complexity— Ethnology  and  Heredity — Prohi- 
bitions and  Injunctions — The  Restrictions  on  Marriage — The  Tribe 
of  the  Smiths — Unwelcome  Daughters — Female  Infanticide — The 
Treatment  of  Widows— Caste  Tyranny— Benares— The  Eome  of 
Hinduism — The  Bathing  Ghats  by  the  Ganges — Brought  down  to 
the  Bitfez  to  Die— The  Strength  of  Hinduism — 'Pariahs  and 
Christians  ' — Where  Christianity  makes  Progress  .        .  .     253 

CHAPTER  XIX 

ISLAM  AND  ITS   CHILDREN 

Hyderabad — A  Mohammedan  Centre — The  Nizam — The  New  Palace — 
Golconda — The  Indian  Moslems — Their  Conservatism — Moham- 
medan Education — Sir  Syed  Ahmed — Aligarh  College — A  Noble 
Institution — A  Visit  to  the  College — Some  of  the  Students — Mus- 
sulman Emancipation — Its  Difficulties — Different  Views  of  the 
Question — The  Mohammedan  as  Workman 274 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE   DISTRICT   OFFICER 

How  India  is  Governed — An  Analogy — The  Japanese  in  Wales — A 
Minute  Bureaucracy — The  District — And  its  Magistrate — His 
Varied  Duties — The  Civilian,  New  and  Old — In  Touch  with  Home    291 


CHAPTER  XXI 

LIGHTS  AND   SHADOWS   OF  EXILE 

Tompkyns  Sahib — A  Martyr? — His  Consolations — Tompkyns  Sahib 
and  Young  Tompkyns — The  Bungalow,  the  Compound,  and  the 
Servants'  Quarters— A  Cheerful  Society— Horses  and  Holidays — 
Tompkyns  in  Middle-age— Going  'Home' — The  Contradictions 
of  Indian  Life — Gold  and  Rags — More  Luxury  than  Comfort — 
What  the  •  Exile  '  Gets— And  What  he  must  Do  Without      .        .     300 


Xli  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  MEMSAHIB 

PAGK 

Anglo-Indian  Womanhood — Some  Calumnies — The  Mutations  of  Miss 
Tompkyns — Streatham  and  Cutchapore— The  Pleasures  of  a  Can- 
tonment—' When  the  World  is  Young  '—The  Hot  Weather— The 
Tragedy  of  the  Children — Anxiety  and  Separation — The  Mem- 
sahib's  Possible  Trials— A  few  Sample  Cases 314 

CHAPTER   XXIII 

IN  THE   VILLAGES 

The  Man  who  Matters — The  Cultivator  of  the  Soil—  India  an  Agricul- 
tural Country — The  Importance  of  Settlement  Work — In  Camp 
with  a  Settlement  Officer — Examining  the  Districts— A  Morning 
Ride — The  '  Protector  of  the  Poor ' — Hearing  Appeals — Justice  and 
Equity — The  Indian  Villager — A  Gregarious  Person— The  Village 
an  Organised  Community — Village  Types — Zemindars  and  Officials 
— The  Helots — Famine,  Debt,  and  Litigation         ....    324 

CHAPTER  XXIV 
THE  PRESENT  AND  THE   FUTURE 

The  Swadeshi  Movement — Explained  by  its  Supporters — A  Significant 
Meeting  in  Calcutta  —Political  Agitation — New  Influences  in  India 
— Steam,  Electricity,  and  Industrialism — The  Higher  Education — 
Its  Defects— The  Teaching  of  'English' — A  Confusing  Curriculum 
— The  Future — Japan  and  the  Awakening  of  Asia — Progress  and 
Paternal  Despotism — The  Native  Learning  to  Do  Without  us — 
Weak  Points  of  our  Bureaucracy — Defects  of  the  Judicial  Service — 
Native  Rivalry  in  Commerce— The  Basis  of  our  Rule — The  Man- 
chus  in  China — The  Question  of  Disloyalty — The  Prince  of  Wales's 
Reception  in  Calcutta — The  Demand  for  Self-government—'  If  We 
were  to  Leave  To-morrow ' — The  Burden  of  the  British  Electorate 
— Will  it  be  Equal  to  its  Duties  ? — Danger  of  Ignorance,  Careless- 

and  Weakness  at  Home 344 


ILLUSTKATIONS 


PAST    AND    PRESENT:     THE    PRINCE    AND    PRINCESS    OF 

wales  at  the  kutab  minar,  near  delhi    .        .  Frontispiece 

BOMBAY  I   STREET   SCENES To  face  p.        8 

JAIN    TEMPLE,    BOMBAY „  16 

BOMBAY  :   IN   THE   BAZAAR „  26 

COOLIES   IN   BOMBAY „  52 

AN   INDIAN   STATE -CAMP „  66 

THE    PUNKAH-WALLAH               ......  „  72 

THE    SAHIB'S   LUGGAGE „  72 

ON    THE   LINE „  84 

THE   CHATTY   AND   THE    KEROSENE-TIN        ....  „  84 

THE   HALL   OF   THE   WINDS   AT  JAIPUR  ....  „  92 

A   CAMEL   CORPS „  100 

IN   THE   BIBLE   LANDS „  100 

FIGHTING   DEER,   JAIPUR „  114 

THE   '  BOVINE    SPECIES  '    AT   JODHPUR     ....  „  114 

HIS   HIGHNESS'S   SUITE „  118 

THE    MAHARAJA'S   PALANQUIN             .           .           ...  „  130 

ONE   OF   SCINDIA'S   ELEPHANTS                                                 *      .  „  130 
ON    THE    EMPIRE'S    RIM  :     AFRIDI    TROOPERS   AT   LANDI 

KOTAL „  148 

THE   ROYAL   PAVILION   IN   THE   KHYBER   PASS     ...  „  148 

INDIAN   CAVALRY „  158 

KHYBER   RIFLES „  158 

HODSON   SHOOTING   THE    MOGHUL   PRINCES     ...  „  168 
{From  a  contemporary  print.) 

IN   THE   PALACE   AT   DELHI „  174 

THE    TAJ   MAHAL   FROM   THE    GARDENS   ....  „  182 


XIV  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

AT   THE   PILGRIM   FAIR: 

fakirs  in  a  procession To  face  p.  200 

MEDITATION „  200 

A   SIKH   MAHANT „  206 

THE   POLICE   POST „  206 

BATHING   SCENE   AT   THE   KUMBH   MELA,   ALLAHABAD       .  „  210 

TYPES   OF   THE    SOUTHLAND „  230 

IN   THE   SOUTHLAND: 

MADRASSI  VILLAGERS   AND   COOLIES            ...  „  240 

WAITING   FOR   THE    ROYAL    PROCESSION    AT    MYSORE  .  „  252 

BENARES:   A   BATHING   GHAT „  264 

ANCIENT   JAIN   TEMPLE    AT    GWALIOR      ....  „  264 

THE    STEPS    OF   THE   MOSQUE      .            .            .            ...  „  280 

AT    THE    DISTRICT   MAGISTRATE'S    TENT              ...  „  296 

SHIFTING  CAMP „  312 

A   TRAVELLING   STABLE „  312 

IN   A   PUNJAB   VILLAGE  : 

THE   WATER  SUPPLY „  324 

THE   PRINCIPAL   INHABITANTS „  324 

THE    SETTLEMENT    OFFICER   AT    WORK          ....  „  330 

ZEMINDARS   AND    RYOTS „  340 

THE    HUTS    OF   THE    HELOTS „  340 

OLD    INDIA:   A    GROUP   OF   PEASANTS         ....  „  354 
NEW     INDIA:     MOHAMMEDAN      STUDENTS      AT     ALIGARH 

COLLEGE „  354 

MAP   OF   THE   TOUR   OF   H.R.H.   THE    PRINCE     OF    WALES 

in  India,  1905-1906 Page  xvi 


Most  of  the  illustrations  are  from  photographs  taken  by  the  Author.  The 
remainder  are  reproduced  from  photographs  by  Messrs.  Bourne  &  Shepherd, 
of  Bombay ',  and  Messrs.  Johnston  &  Hoffmann,  of  Calcutta,  except  the  copy 
of  the  print  representing  ■ Hodson  shooting  the  Moghul  Princes'  {facing 
page  168),  for  which  the  Author  is  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  his  friend, 
Mr.  A.  W.  U.  Pope,  G.I.E.,  of  Lucknow.  The  medallion  on  the  cover  is  an 
enlarged  copy  of  an  old  Hyderabad  rupee. 


MAP  OF  THE  TOUR 

Of 

H.R.H.  THE  PRINCE  OF  WALES 

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A   VISION    OF    INDIA 

CHAPTEK   I 
AT  THE   SEAWABD  GATE 

The  tension  of  the  restless  Eastern  night  lay  upon  the 
great  P.  and  0.  liner  as  she  glided  through  the  last  stretch 
of  dark  water  that  held  her  from  India.  On  a  ship  in  the 
western  and  northern  waters,  night,  so  far  as  may  be,  is 
given  to  seclusion  and  repose,  as  it  is  on  shore.  Except 
for  the  stokers,  toiling  among  their  abysmal  fires  below, 
and  the  watch  keeping  silent  vigil  overhead,  all  are 
asleep,  or  at  least  seeking  to  get  as  much  sleep  as  winds 
and  waves  permit.  But  the  passenger  steamer,  eastward 
bound,  when  once  she  has  passed  Suez  and  felt  the 
languorous  breath  of  the  Bed  Sea,  falls  swiftly  into  the 
indefinite  eastern  way,  the  way  of  a  world  that  is  never 
wholly  awake  by  day  or  quite  asleep  at  night. 

If  you  leave  your  cabin  any  time  between  the  mid- 
night and  the  dawn,  you  are  conscious  of  a  vague  stirring 
of  life  about  you.  You  have  need  to  walk  delicately  lest 
you  stumble  over  some  prone  and  breathing  form.  On 
the  spar  deck  and  the  promenade  deck  you  may  disturb 
the  repose  of  many  of  the  first-class  passengers,  who, 
finding  their  berths  unendurable,  even  with  the  electric 
fans  whirling,  have  ordered  their  beds  to  be  laid  out  upon 
the  boards.     On  the  starboard  side,  fenced  in  by  a  zareeba 

B 


2  ,  ,  ttA  VISION  OF  INDIA 

of  deck-chairs,  are  a  dozen  ladies  ;  on  the  port  side  scores 
of  men  lie  ,stretQhed,upon  their  mattresses,  with  no  more 
•bed~clb$hihg«*than;  -a'  sheet  drawn  over  them,  if  so  much. 
The  solvent  of  climate  has  acted  quickly.  Here  is  a 
stout  responsible  gentleman,  no  longer  in  his  first  youth. 
Three  weeks  ago  you  could  have  met  him  in  an  English 
hotel  or  a  Swiss  pension,  and  he  would  as  soon  have 
danced  a  hornpipe  on  the  table  of  the  salle-a-manger  as 
passed  a  night  in  public.  He  wooed  the  goddess  of 
slumber  chastely,  behind  closed  doors,  in  the  midst  of 
decorous  bedroom  furniture.  Now  he  lies  in  the  open, 
amid  a  score  of  casual  strangers,  with  bare  feet  touched 
by  the  sea  wind,  and  all  his  portly  form  in  striped 
pyjamas  revealed  to  the  searching  stars. 

Below,  in  the  aisles  and  galleries  of  the  main  deck, 
where  the  luggage  has  been  stacked  in  readiness  for  the 
morning,  and  in  all  sorts  of  odd  corners,  are  other  sleepers. 
The  ship  carries  a  large  complement  of  ladies  and  chil- 
dren and  consequently  has  many  ayahs ;  and  the  ayah, 
like  the  Indian  servant  generally,  sleeps  where  she  can, 
by  preference  muffling  herself  in  her  cotton  rug  near  the 
door  of  her  mistress's  cabin,  so  that  she  may  respond 
readily  if  the  Memsahib  should  call,  or  if  sonny  baba  should 
cry  in  the  watches  of  the  night.  Sometimes  she  may 
be  allowed  to  take  her  charge  with  her.  As  I  pass  the 
main  hatch,  which  covers  the  baggage-room,  I  see  a  pretty 
picture.  A  Madrassi  ayah  lies  there,  swathed  in  garments 
of  spotless  white,  from  which  emerge  arms  of  chocolate  and 
a  brown  foot  and  ankle  adorned  with  heavy  silver  bangles. 
On  the  same  mattress  is  an  English  child,  with  dewy 
cheeks,  golden  curls,  and  dimpled  rosy  limbs.  The  boy 
tosses  restlessly  in  the  dim  heat-laden  air,  till  the  Tamil 
woman  pats  him  with  a  deft  magnetic  touch,  and  croons 
softly  some  old-world  nursery  song  of  the  south,  and  so 
lulls  him  to  a  fitful  slumber  again. 


AT   THE   SEAWARD   GATE  3 

The  great  ship  sways  gently  and  slowly,  like  a  cradle, 
on  the  swell  of  a  drowsy  sea  that  seems  to  breathe  with 
long  measured  respirations.  The  water  is  dark,  with  no 
ripple  of  light  to  break  its  sleek  and  oily  blackness. 
Black,  too,  without  one  touch  of  blue  or  grey,  is  the  sky, 
a  dome  of  solid  velvet,  through  which  the  stars  burn  like 
points  of  golden  fire,  or  gleam  in  showers  and  rains  of 
silver  in  the  broad  cincture  of  the  Milky  Way.  The 
shafts  of  starlight  and  moonlight  cross  one  another  in  the 
spaces  overhead,  but  they  are  lost  in  the  dull  water,  and 
the  ship  glides  through  heavy  banks  of  shadow.  Suddenly 
an  orange  light  flames  out  of  the  void  beyond  our  bows 
and  disappears,  only  to  turn  its  glare  upon  us  again  a  few 
seconds  later.  Even  the  unimaginative  European  tourist 
may  feel  some  tightening  of  the  heart  as  the  big  yellow 
eye  winks  solemnly  at  him  across  the  heaving  plain ;  for 
this  is  the  seaward  light  of  Bombay,  and  behind  it  lies 
India,  with  all  its  mysteries  and  its  millions. 

But  what  are  these  white-robed  shapes,  moving 
silently,  with  shoeless  feet,  along  the  crowded  decks  ? 
The  shadowy  figures  flit  across  the  gangway  to  the  fore- 
castle, where  the  anchor  gear  lies  in  a  huddle  of  wind- 
lasses and  cranes  and  chains.  They  pause  just  behind 
the  Lascar  sailor  and  the  English  quartermaster  who 
share  the  look-out,  and  go  through  a  series  of  compli- 
cated genuflections  and  salaams.  I  forbear  to  disturb  the 
devotions  of  the  Faithful,  and  do  not  draw  near  enough 
to  ascertain  whether  this  is  some  special  ceremony  con- 
nected with  the  sacred  fires  of  home,  or  whether  these 
are  merely  the  customary  orisons  before  the  dawn  of  day. 
Do  my  eyes  mislead  me  in  the  dimness,  or  is  one  of  those 
shrouded  forms  that  of  the  extremely  alert  young  native 
gentleman,  who  had  won  the  sweepstake  on  the  ship's 
run  in  the  morning,  discussed  Haeckel  and  Mr.  Benjamin 
Kidd  with  me  in  the  afternoon,  and  played  an  animated 

B  2 


4  A  VISION   OF   INDIA 

game  of  bridge  in  the  smoking-room  all  the  evening? 
But  it  is  time  to  go  below  and  snatch  a  little  sleep,  and 
then  bathe  and  dress,  if  we  are  to  pay  our  own  respects 
on  the  threshold  of  the  Empire  in  the  East. 

There  are  finer  roadsteads  in  the  world  than  that  of 
Bombay,  but  not  many,  I  think,  that  are  more  picturesque 
and  impressive.  The  sun  is  rising  high  in  the  heavens 
as  the  anchor-chains  rattle  through  the  hawse-pipes  ; 
and  the  harbour  launches  Government  tugs  and  Com- 
pany's tenders  pant  anxiously  round  the  floating  bridge 
that  weekly  joins  India  and  •  Home.'  The  water-front  of 
the  city,  with  its  long  line  of  high  white  buildings,  lies 
before  us ;  a  few  cables  away  we  see  the  funnels  and 
fighting-tops  of  a  cruiser,  the  flagship  of  the  Admiral  of 
the  station ;  white- winged  yachts  skim  over  the  twinkling 
waters;  there  are  two  other  large  passenger  steamers 
swinging  at  their  moorings.  We  are  in  what  appears  to 
be  a  land-locked  space  of  sea,  dotted  with  islands,  and 
shut  in  by  green  hills,  leaning  to  the  water's  edge,  with 
higher  mountain  shapes  swelling  in  the  distance.  It 
might  be  a  Scottish  loch,  but  for  the  white  sunlight, 
which  pours  over  everything  and  makes  outlines  sharply 
visible,  as  they  seldom  can  be  behind  the  watery  veil  of 
the  denser  northern  atmosphere. 

But  the  East  greets  you  with  a  rush  the  moment  you 
step  ashore.  All  along  the  landing-stage  you  see  a  line 
of  bare-legged  men,  in  turbans  and  very  clean  white  linen 
robes,  who  are  servants  of  the  incoming  passengers, 
brought  in,  perhaps,  only  from  the  suburbs  of  Bombay, 
perhaps  from  the  Punjab,  Madras,  or  Assam,  to  await  the 
arrival  of  their  masters  and  mistresses.  And  on  that  same 
platform  are  many  other  types  and  figures  characteristic 
of  India  as  it  is  to-day  under  British  rule.  Here  is  the 
Anglo-Indian  husband,  from  up  the  country,  come  down 


AT  THE   SEAWARD   GATE  5 

to  greet  a  returning  wife.  It  may  be  many  months  since 
he  has  seen  her  last,  months  of  toil  amid  the  baked  dust 
of  the  plains  for  him,  and  for  her  perhaps  a  quiet  rectory 
nestling  among  leafy  English  lanes.  She  has  to  tell  him 
of  the  boys,  left  at  school  '  At  Home ' ;  or  she  may  try  to 
induce  the  baby,  rather  cross  in  her  ayah's  arms,  to  make 
friends  with  the  lean,  brickdust-coloured  person,  of  whom 
she  was  too  young  to  '  take  notice '  when  she  was  carried 
away  on  the  homeward  voyage. 

Tenderer  meetings  occur  in  a  secluded  corner  of  the 
landing-stage.  Here  are  a  couple  of  affianced  maidens 
come  out  to  marry  the  men  of  their  choice.  They  have 
the  English  blush  in  their  cheeks,  the  unmistakable  bridal 
look  in  their  eyes ;  the  smartest  of  Bond  Street  dresses 
have  been  extracted  from  the  many  packages  which  form 
their  travelling  trousseaux  to  impress  the  stalwart  young 
fellows  whose  bungalows  they  will  presently  irradiate. 
Before  the  hot  morning  has  waned  into  the  merciful 
coolness  of  evening,  there  will  be  a  wedding  service  at  the 
Cathedral  and  a  wedding  breakfast  at  the  Taj  Mahal 
Hotel ;  and  in  a  few  weeks  the  new  gowns  will  have  roused 
the  envy  of  critical  matrons  among  the  hills,  or  evoked 
the  despairing  admiration  of  home-sick  subalterns  on  the 
plains. 

A  clatter  of  many  tongues  prevails,  and  a  torrent  of 
hasty  conversation,  as  the  slow  process  of  clearing  and 
checking  the  passengers'  baggage  is  got  through.  Brisk 
young  Bombay  business  men  are  exchanging  greetings 
with  friends  from  the  Yacht  Club  and  the  Byculla; 
officers  of  all  arms  are  already  deep  in  conversation  as  to 
stations  and  marching  orders  ;  and  Indian  civilians, 
returned  from  leave,  assume  a  certain  pride  in  their  port 
and  dignity  in  their  mien  which  you  did  not  notice  on 
shipboard.  During  the  voyage  the  Collector  Sahib  was 
an  inconspicuous  unit  in  the  crowd,  who  spent  his  time 


6  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

for  the  most  part  in  his  deck-chair  reading  novels.  But 
the  mail-train  is  in  waiting  to  bear  him  to  his  satrapy. 
To-morrow  he  will  be  the  Huzur,  the  Presence,  the  Pro- 
tector of  the  Poor,  the  representative  of  an  omnipotent 
Government,  ruler,  patron,  beneficent  despot,  and  earthly 
Providence  for  a  million  of  miscellaneous  Asiatics.  The 
air  of  authority  comes  back  upon  him  as  naturally  as  the 
pith  helmet  and  the  suit  of  silk  with  which  he  invests 
himself  on  the  last  morning  of  his  journey. 

You  go  outside  into  the  white  sunlight  to  find  a  cab. 
The  Mussulman  driver  of  the  tihka  gharry  salaams  to 
you  with  effusion  as  being  a  Sahib  of  inexperience,  who 
will  give  a  rupee  where  another  would  bestow  eight  annas. 
The  short  drive  to  the  hotel  takes  you  through  what 
seems  to  be  a  fine  modern  town.  You  see  handsome 
stone  and  brick  buildings  of  great  size,  imposing  frontages, 
clubs,  hotels,  public  gardens,  statues,  fountains,  well- 
stocked  shop  windows.  But  you  have  no  eyes  for  such 
things.  You  are  held  and  fascinated  by  the  riot  of  colour 
and  strange  humanity  with  which  you  are  assailed  at 
once.  Bombay  is  a  generous  and  liberal  hostess  to  the 
stranger  within  her  gates.  She  feels  the  responsibility  of 
showing  him  India,  and  she  does  not  husband  her  trea- 
sures or  reveal  them  grudgingly,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
throws  them  lavishly  before  him  at  the  first  onset.  The 
great  city  is  cosmopolitan  and  Pan- Asiatic.  A  fifth  of 
the  human  race  has  its  representatives  within  the  island 
town  where  the  white  Power  in  the  East  found  its  first 
secure  resting-place.  Bombay  is  largely  an  epitome  and 
abstract  of  the  conglomerate  of  peoples  and  religions 
which  we  call  by  a  single  inadequate  name. 

The  visitor  will  find  out  something  of  this  later.  But 
in  the  beginning  he  can  only  gaze  in  a  sort  of  helpless 
amazement,  stunned  by  the  succession  of  living  pictures 
which  ring  their  chromatic  chords  upon  his  bewildered 


AT  THE   SEAWARD   GATE  7 

retina.  His  first  impression  is  that  he  is  taking  part  in  a 
gigantic  masquerade,  with  everybody  in  fancy  dress  of 
indiscriminate  extravagance.  Here  are  splendour,  wealth, 
poverty,  but,  above  all,  colour  and  strangeness.  All  the 
hues  of  the  rainbow,  and  many  more,  are  displayed  against 
a  background  of  white  and  brown,  the  white  of  cotton 
garments  and  the  dusky  tone  of  bare  legs  and  arms  and 
bodies.  The  reflection  you  feebly  make  as  you  survey  the 
groups  which  move  like  ants  over  the  broad  roads  is  that 
in  Bombay  any  person  may  wear  anything  or  nothing. 
He  may  clothe  himself  in  a  costume  which  would  seem 
grotesquely  spectacular  in  a  Drury  Lane  pantomime,  or 
he  may  go  with  a  wisp  of  rag  round  his  loins.  Here  is  a 
pudgy  child,  naked  as  nature  made  him,  save  for  two 
anklets  of  rough  silver ;  here  a  Parsi  lady  in  a  robe  of 
sky-blue  silk,  and  a  filmy  veil  of  muslin  and  silver  tinsel 
drawn  over  her  black  hair  and  round  the  pale  oval  of  her 
dark  face. 

A  porter  strides  along  the  tram-lines  bearing  a  load  of 
wood.  His  thin  legs,  revealed  in  all  their  length,  his  bare 
arms  and  breast  and  shoulders,  gleam  in  the  sun  as  if 
carved  out  of  some  smooth  polished  brown  wood.  There 
is  a  shout  of  *  Ey-ah '  behind  him,  and  he  jumps  out  of 
the  way  to  avoid  being  run  over  by  the  carriage  in  which 
his  Highness  the  Kaja  is  seated  with,  some  of  his  suite. 
His  Highness  has  come  into  Bombay,  where  he  is  rent- 
ing a  bungalow  for  a  fortnight  on  Malabar  Hill  for 
20,000  rupees,  in  order  that  he  may  welcome  the  Prince 
of  Wales  on  his  arrival,  and  he  is  in  festal  array.  His 
coachman  and  his  two  grooms  have  gold  turbans  and 
gold  sashes,  his  landau  is  a  noble  vehicle,  and  it  is  drawn 
by  two  high-stepping  bays.  He  himself  is  attired  in 
white  silk  trousers,  spangled  with  gold  stars,  a  pink 
jacket,  and  a  magnificent  green  and  gold  turban  with  a 
high  aigrette  and  a  brooch  of  diamonds. 


8  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

The  landau  moves  with  stately  slowness;  its  big 
horses  are  fat  and  out  of  condition.  It  is  easily  passed, 
not  only  by  the  shabby  gharry,  in  which  is  seated  an 
English  lady  in  a  white  flannel  dress  with  a  huge  sun 
helmet,  but  also  by  the  native  bullock-cart,  with  its  two 
little  humped  zebus  trotting  smartly  along.  The  cart  is 
gaily  painted,  and  a  whole  Hindu  family  in  striped  cottons 
of  various  shades  are  stowed  miscellaneously  inside. 

Wherever  the  eye  travels  it  catches  some  patch  or 
point  of  colour ;  and  no  combination  seems  to  be  excluded 
on  the  ground  of  extravagance  or  excess.  In  most  places, 
even  in  Cairo,  or  Constantinople,  or  Tangier,  some  notice 
would  be  directed  to  a  stout  man,  with  a  sort  of  Eoman 
toga  of  vivid  purple,  drawn  over  a  yellow  under-garment, 
and  crossed  by  a  sash  or  waistband  of  cerise,  with  a  head- 
dress of  red  velvet  and  silver  braid,  especially  if  the 
arrangement  ended  inadequately  with  tight  cotton  drawers 
and  canvas  shoes  in  bad  condition.  In  Bombay  no  one  is 
surprised  at  this  decorative  scheme ;  nor  at  others,  such 
as  that  of  the  man  with  bare  feet,  several  inches  of  un- 
sheltered skin  above  the  waist-line,  and  a  turban  of  a  pale 
lemon  silk,  of  a  quality  and  shade  so  delicious  that  one 
would  have  liked  to  buy  it  on  the  spot. 

There  are  Parsi  gentlemen  in  grey  bowlers  provided 
with  a  parti-coloured  roll  instead  of  a  rim,  and  Parsi  clerks 
and  shop  assistants  in  black  alpaca  surtouts  and  high  hats 
of  shiny  oilskin.  A  few  Englishmen  are  visible  in  sola 
topis  and  flannels,  and  there  are  Arabs,  Armenians,  veiled 
Mussulman  ladies,  ragged  dervishes  all  hair  and  tatters,  a 
water-carrier  with  his  goat-skin  bag  across  his  back,  and 
coolie  women  in  bright-coloured  saris.  The  novelty  of 
the  scene,  and  the  flood  of  living  light  poured  over 
everything,  transfigure  the  commonest  incidents  to  your 
enraptured  senses.  A  Hindu  with  the  caste  mark  on  his 
forehead,  under  the  white  folds  of  his  ample  headdress, 


BOMBAY  :  STREET  SCENES. 


<        I      I   C    C      I 


AT  THE   SEAWARD   GATE  9 

and  two  bullet-headed  Goanese  servants,  are  leaning  from 
a  low  verandah  to  talk  to  a  woman  of  the  people  on  the 
pavement  below.  A  crimson  shawl  drapes  gracefully  over 
her  head  and  shoulders,  leaving  her  shapely  brown  legs 
bare  to  the  knee,  and  as  she  lifts  an  arm  you  see  that  it  is 
clothed  to  the  elbow  in  broad  bands  of  silver.  A  carriage 
dashes  through  an  open  gateway,  and  two  grooms  leap 
down  and  run  beside  it,  with  long  horse-tails  fluttering 
from  the  staves  they  carry.  In  a  hand-cart,  heaped  with 
garbage,  a  man  is  rooting  and  burrowing  like  a  dog.  All 
his  raiment  would  not  furnish  the  substance  of  a  table- 
napkin  ;  but  gold  loops  depend  from  his  ears,  and  a  collar 
of  dull  blue  stones  is  round  his  neck.  As  you  drive  in  to 
the  welcome  coolness  of  the  shaded  hotel  courtyard,  you 
feel  that  if  your  Vision  of  India  were  to  be  limited  to  a 
single  morning  spent  in  Bombay  you  would  not  have 
crossed  the  seas  altogether  in  vain. 

His  first  few  days  in  the  city,  if  the  visitor  has  never 
set  foot  on  the  soil  of  India  before,  are  likely  to  be  a 
period  of  delighted  amazement  and  most  enjoyable  con- 
fusion. He  wanders  about,  drinking  in  the  fulness  of  the 
new  experience,  perplexed  and  absorbed  by  all  he  sees, 
trying  to  wind  his  way  through  the  jumble  of  novel  human 
types  and  unfamiliar  customs  and  costumes  borne  before 
him.  Bombay  is  different  from  any  other  town  outside 
India;  the  tourist  will  presently  discover  that  India  itself 
has  nowhere  anything  quite  like  it.  The  Island  City 
is  unique-  a  diluvies  gentium,  a  well  into  which  the  races 
of  Asia  have  poured  themselves,  or,  perhaps  one  should 
say,  a  reservoir  out  of  which  they  pass  as  fast  as  they  flow 
in.  It  is  full  of  the  wealth  of  the  East  and  the  wealth  of 
the  West,  and  of  the  poverty  and  vice  of  both.  It  has  its 
palaces  fit  for  a  prince,  and  its  human  kennels  unfit  for  a 
dog.     The  hand  of  Vishnu  the  Preserver,  and  Siva  the 


10  A   VISION  OF   INDIA 

Destroyer,  are  felt  in  their  might  daily.  A  splendid  indus- 
trial and  commercial  activity  makes  Bombay  rich  and 
great,  and  a  canker  is  working  at  its  vitals.  Every  tenth 
person  you  meet  is  doomed  to  swift  and  painful  death  by 
a  disease  for  which  science  has  no  remedy.  It  is  the 
city  of  the  Parsi  millionaire.     It  is  the  city  of  the  Plague. 

When  you  have  begun  to  disentangle  your  first  im- 
pressions, you  can  appreciate  the  force  of  the  contrasts 
which  Bombay  presents.  The  East  and  the  West,  the 
Old  and  the  New,  are  here  in  curious  and  piquant  juxta- 
position. A  great  deal  of  that  part  of  Bombay  which 
is  called  the  Fort,  and  is  the  centre  of  the  European 
business  life,  is  very  modern  indeed.  There  are  enormous 
ranges  of  huge  public  buildings,  designed  with  a  fine 
official  disregard  for  all  local  associations,  great  blocks 
of  flats,  and  flourishing  shops,  some  of  which  might  have 
been  transported  from  Bond  Street  and  others  brought 
from  the  Edgware  Koad ;  and  a  life,  essentially  English 
and  only  touching  the  East  at  the  fringes,  is  in  being 
here.  But  a  few  hundred  yards  away  are  the  bazaars 
and  the  native  streets,  and  you  are  in  the  heart  of  Asia. 
This  is  true,  more  or  less,  of  many  Indian  towns ;  but  it 
is  specially  felt  to  be  the  case  in  Bombay,  because  there 
the  Europeans  are  not  shepherded  apart  in  cantonments, 
or  in  any  separate  quarter  of  their  own,  but  are  physically, 
at  least,  in  pretty  close  contact  with  the  natives.  The 
lines  touch  at  many  points,  but  they  do  not  merge. 

*  Society  '  in  Bombay,  though  the  natives  are  knocking 
insistently  at  its  portals,  is  still  English  in  the  English 
orthodox  mode.  It  is  more  varied  in  its  constituents,  more 
permeated  by  the  commercial  element,  and  less  dominated 
by  the  official  factor,  than  in  other  Indian  towns,  except 
Calcutta.  But  its  forms  and  customs  are  those  to  which 
we  cling  with  fidelity  wherever  we  settle.  There  are 
excellent  clubs  in  Bombay,  where  the  stranger,  if  properly 


AT   THE   SEAWARD   GATE  11 

accredited — much  meaning  in  that  '  if ' — will  be  welcomed 
with  a  most  agreeable  hospitality ;  there  is  a  relative 
abundance  of  ladies'  society;  tea  parties,  lawn-tennis 
parties,  and  dinner  parties  prevail ;  people  dance,  ride,  play 
bridge,  and  go  out  with  a  good  pack  of  hounds  to  hunt  the 
jackal ;  they  escape  the  heats  of  Bombay  by  ruralising  in 
the  hill  stations  of  the  Ghats,  or  they  flit  about  the 
harbour  in  smart  little  yachts. 

In  the  cool  garden  of  the  Yacht  Club,  from  tea  onward 
till  dinner-time,  the  visitor  may  almost  forget  that  he  is 
in  India.  If  it  is  on  a  Friday,  the  day  when  the  P.  and  0. 
liner  discharges  its  complement,  the  grounds  will  be 
thronged,  especially  during  the  weeks  of  the  autumn  rush 
eastward.  Except  for  the  dark  faces  and  white  cotton 
garb  of  the  servants,  there  is  little  that  is  distinctively 
Oriental.  Ladies  are  parading  the  green  lawns,  or  taking 
tea  and  cooling  drinks  at  small  tables  set  out  on  the 
terrace  which  overlooks  the  shimmering  waters  of  the 
roadstead.  Immediately  opposite  lies  the  slate-grey 
guardship,  and  a  wall -sided  yellow-funnelled  transport. 
The  band  of  the  Blankshire  Kegiment  is  playing  a  selec- 
tion from  the  last  new  musical  comedy.  The  fragrance 
of  cigarette-smoke  is  wafted  into  the  air ;  there  is  the 
tinkle  of  feminine  laughter  and  the  buzz  of  many  voices ; 
the  women  are  in  light  European  summer  dresses ;  the 
straw  hat  has  replaced  the  sun-helmet  for  the  men  ;  we 
might  be  on  the  Kiviera,  or  at  some  fashionable  country 
club  in  the  United  States,  or  perhaps  even  at  Kanelagh 
or  Hurlingham. 

When  you  have  stayed  long  enough  and  drunk  your 
tea,  and  the  sudden  Eastern  night  has  fallen  in  its  pall  of 
blackness,  you  will  be  asked  to  dine  in  some  luxurious 
bungalow  or  well-appointed  flat.  Here,  it  is  true,  the 
flavour  is  slightly  more  Oriental.  The  punkahs  will  be 
flapping  above  your  head  ;  barefooted  '  boys  '  will  minister 


12  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

to  you.  But  though  there  may  be  some  unfamiliar 
dishes  and  a  local  fish,  the  viands  presented  will  be  in  the 
main  those  of  home.  You  will  find  a  menu  card,  written 
in  the  usual  culinary  French;  mutton  cutlets  and  par- 
tridges and  asparagus  and  ices  and  olives  farcies  will 
appear  on  the  list ;  you  will  drink  Mumm  or  Heidsieck, 
and  talk  to  your  neighbour  about  nothing  in  particular 
in  a  subdued  undertone.  It  is  a  replica  of  those  sparkling 
repasts  with  which  we  exhilarate  ourselves  during  the 
London  season.  You  will  emerge  into  the  starlight  with 
the  consciousness  of  an  evening  spent  in  a  reputable  and 
decorous  dulness. 

But  get  back  into  your  gharry  and  tell  the  driver  to 
take  you  by  the  Grant  Eoad  past  the  Munbadevi  Tank, 
along  Abdul  Kahman  Street,  by  the  Bendi  Bazaar,  and 
about  the  native  quarter  generally.  You  will  not  lack 
entertainment :  especially  if  you  strike  Bombay,  as  I  did, 
on  the  eve  of  a  Koyal  visit,  and  at  the  new  moon  of  the 
month  Kartik,  which  is  the  Hindu  Feast  of  Lanterns. 
The  entertainment  begins  even  before  you  leave  Malabar 
Hill,  that  most  desirable  residential  region,  where  the 
luxurious  bungalows  have  their  place.  Many  of  these 
have  been  rented  for  a  fortnight  by  native  chiefs  and 
potentates,  who  have  come  into  Bombay  to  pay  their 
respects  to  the  Shahzada.  They  are  in  a  demonstrative 
mood ;  they  attest  their  loyalty  to  the  eye  and  ear.  That 
is  why  *  The  Queen  Victoria  Boyal  Band '  has  been 
brought  up  to  the  lawn  of  Bellaggio,  and  why  its  Eurasian 
artists  are  fiddling  drumming  and  fifeing  furiously  among 
the  flower-beds  ;  that  is  why  The  Pines  is  a  blaze  of  light, 
and  why  its  compound  is  dotted  all  over  with  red  green 
and  white  balls  of  tinsel  stuck  on  little  poles.  If  a  man  is 
a  raja,  and  a  ruling  chief,  and  a  K.C.I. E.,  entitled  to  be 
met  at  the  railway-station  by  a  Government  House  aide- 
de-camp,  and  to  a  salute  of  several  guns,  there  is  no  reason 


AT  THE   SEAWAED   GATE  13 

in  the  world  why  his  presence  should  not  be  made  known 
to  the  general  public  in  a  perceptible  fashion. 

The  night,  indeed,  like  Prospero's  isle,  is  'full  of 
noises ' ;  the  Indian  night  always  is,  even  in  the  quieter 
suburbs  of  the  towns,  for  there  are  the  noises  of  beast  and 
bird,  as  well  as  the  sounds  made  by  human  hands  and 
throats.  The  field  crickets  and  grasshoppers  are  chirping 
with  a  loud  metallic  clank ;  the  grey-backed  crows,  which 
you  have  noticed  all  day  feeding  on  dead  rats  and  other 
carrion,  retire  to  their  nests  with  raucous  cawings ;  weird 
squeals  and  chatterings  are  heard  from  a  thicket,  and  you 
know — that  is,  you  know  when  your  driver  tells  you — 
that  they  are  emitted  by  the  monkeys  who  are  swinging 
in  the  boughs. 

When  you  reach  the  native  bazaar,  your  coachman 
must  drive  at  a  foot's-pace,  with  many  stoppages.  The 
narrow  twisting  streets  are  swarming  with  people,  spread- 
ing all  over  the  roadway  in  close  groups  and  solid  columns. 
You  will  make  better  progress  by  leaving  your  carriage 
and  walking ;  besides,  this  will  give  you  an  opportunity 
of  observing  the  people  in  their  various  types  and  tribes. 
Your  studies  have  not  gone  very  far,  but  you  make  an 
attempt  to  classify  and  select.  In  India  everybody  bears 
the  mark  of  his  occupation,  his  religion,  and  his  social 
status  upon  his  person,  so  that  his  mere  outward  aspect 
should  tell  you  who  he  is  and  what  he  does.  It  is  as  if 
you  could  wait  for  the  nine-fifteen  train  at  Ludgate  Hill, 
and,  as  the  crowd  poured  through  the  turnstiles,  you  could 
point  a  finger  and  say :  '  Here  is  a  Koman  Catholic,  here 
a  member  of  the  Church  of  England,  here  a  Welsh  Non- 
conformist; this  man  was  born  in  Lancashire  and  is  a 
member  of  the  Stock  Exchange;  that  other  is  very 
likely  to  be  an  auctioneer,  though  it  is  also  possible 
that  he  does  something  on  commission  in  coals  and 
wine.' 


14  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

There  is  ample  opportunity  for  such  exercises  in  the 
Bombay  bazaar.  Even  a  novice  can  distinguish  between 
the  Mussulman  head-gear  and  that  of  the  Hindu,  between 
the  sturdy,  upstanding  Sikh  and  the  Mahratta,  with  his 
rat-like  profile,  little,  restless  eyes,  and  receding  forehead ; 
between  the  Brahman,  with  his  oval  face  and  pale 
yellowish  skin,  and  the  outcast,  despised  Mahar,  a  little 
blackened  wisp  of  a  man,  stunted  and  ape-like.  In 
honour  of  the  Festival,  many  of  the  people  have  been  to 
the  priests  and  paid  their  fee  to  have  their  caste-marks 
repainted,  so  that  their  foreheads  glisten  with  weird 
symbols,  balls  and  lines  and  ovals,  and  smears  of  red  and 
yellow. 

The  expert  can  tell  you  something  about  almost 
everybody  you  pass  in  the  throng.  Here  is  a  baniya, 
or  retail  trader,  with  carpet  slippers  and  a  large  gamp 
umbrella  in  his  hand.  The  baniya  is  often  fat;  for, 
though  he  lives  generally  in  the  native  quarter  and  in  the 
native  fashion,  he  may  be  quite  rich,  and  wealth  means 
to  a  Hindu  more  butter  and  ghee  and  rice  and  sweet- 
meats and  other  viands  that  produce  adipose  tissue. 
Here  is  a  man  in  white  jacket  and  trousers  of  a  some- 
what European  cut,  carrying  a  child  sitting  astride  his 
right  hip,  and  followed  by  a  woman  in  a  purple  sari, 
a  square  of  cotton  cloth,  which  serves  for  tunic  and 
bodice  and  as  much  skirt  as  she  needs.  It  is  the  prosper- 
ous upper  servant  of  a  well-to-do  family,  or  perhaps  the 
butler  at  a  club,  taking  his  youngest  born  and  the  more 
favoured  of  his  two  wives  out  to  see  the  show.  He 
shuffles  along,  in  ungainly  fashion,  in  his  canvas  shoes ; 
his  wife,  in  her  graceful  drapery,  with  silver  earrings 
and  anklets,  is  a  more  distinguished  figure,  and  she 
walks  like  a  princess,  but  she  keeps  respectfully  a  pace 
or  two  behind  her  lord,  and  does  not  speak  to  him  ex- 
cept when  he  turns  to  address  her  over  his  shoulder. 


AT  THE   SEAWARD  GATE  15 

In  Bombay  and  elsewhere  in  India  the  women  of  the 
lower  classes  have  a  dignity  of  carriage  which  is  denied  to 
their  male  owners.  Some  of  them,  of  the  coolie  grade, 
are  almost  pygmies  in  stature,  their  features  are  blunt 
and  shrivelled,  and  they  are  black  from  exposure  to  the 
sun ;  but  no  wild  doe  on  the  mountain-side  moves  with 
more  unfettered  grace  and  freedom.  The  women  walk 
better  than  the  men,  for  they  bear  their  burdens  on  their 
heads,  while  their  partners  and  proprietors  bend  and 
slouch  under  the  weight  of  heavy  loads  carried  on  the 
shoulders  and  back. 

The  bazaar  is  always  crowded  from  early  morning 
until  late  night ;  it  is  always  full  of  people  walking, 
sitting,  lying  on  the  ground,  jostling  against  one  another 
like  ants.  But  perhaps  the  throng  is  a  little  more  than 
normal  on  this  Feast  of  Lamps,  the  Diwali,  which  is  one 
of  the  great  festivals  of  the  Hindu  year.  The  Diwali  is 
held  in  honour  of  Lakhshmi,  the  Venus  of  the  Indian 
Pantheon,  the  wife  of  Vishnu  the  Preserver.  Lakhshmi, 
like  her  Hellenic  antitype,  arose  out  of  the  foam  of  the 
sea  waves,  and  she  is  the  Goddess  of  Beauty ;  but  she  is 
also  the  Goddess  of  Wealth  and  Prosperity,  and  is  there- 
fore held  in  special  honour  by  shopkeepers  and  tradesmen. 

On  the  Feast  of  Lamps  the  gains  of  the  year  are 
dedicated  to  the  goddess,  and  every  house  is  lighted  for 
her.  The  larger  Europeanised  stores  in  the  bazaar,  the 
'cheap  jacks,'  where  they  sell  all  sorts  of  things,  from 
bicycles  to  safety-pins,  the  motor  garage  where  the 
wealthy  native  buys  his  up-to-date  car,  are  hung  with 
tiers  of  electric  lights  and  glow-lamps;  but  each  little 
square  booth  has  its  own  small  illumination.  All  the 
shops  are  open,  and  the  owners  are  seen  sitting  beside  the 
implements  and  objects  of  their  trade.  The  goldsmith 
has  rows  of  candles  to  set  off  his  golden  bowls,  his  cups 
and  chains  and   jewellery  work ;    the   shroff,  the   small 


16  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

moneylender  or  usurer,  piles  up  his  account-books  in  a 
heap,  with  a  kerosene  lamp  on  top.  A  white  Hindu 
temple  is  all  festooned  with  ropes  and  wreaths  of  flowers  ; 
a  yellow  Jain  chapel  sparkles  with  coloured  lights,  and 
looks  rather  like  a  Paris  cafe,  with  its  open  rooms  and 
balconies  and  lounging  groups.  Only  the  Mohammedan 
mosque  stands  grimly  shut  and  dark  and  silent ;  for 
Diwali  is  a  Hindu  festival,  and  the  children  of  the  Faith 
have  no  part  in  it.  There  were  times  when  the  celebra- 
tion was  a  fruitful  source  of  faction-fighting  and  serious 
riot.  But  the  vigilant  Bombay  constables,  little  sturdy 
men  in  blue,  are  scattered  freely  among  the  crowds,  and 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  whole  turmoil,  where  the  chief 
Mohammedan  street  crosses  the  Hindu  bazaar,  there  is  a 
small  square  brick  building,  which  is  the  police  post. 
Here  a  couple  of  sepoys  are  talking  to  a  khaki-clad  sowar 
of  the  mounted  force  standing  beside  his  horse,  ready  to 
ride  to  the  barracks  for  assistance,  if  need  be ;  and  against 
the  door-post  leans  a  tall  young  Englishman,  in  white 
uniform  and  helmet,  surveying  the  passing  stream  of 
humanity  with  good-humoured,  but  not  inattentive,  indif- 
ference— a  symbol  of  that  impartial  tolerance,  combined 
with  the  vigorous  assertion  of  public  authority  in  the 
maintenance  of  order,  which  is  the  attitude  of  the  British 
raj  towards  the  creeds  and  sects  of  India. 


JAIN    TEMPLE,    BOMBAY. 


(       C        C       t  , 


17 


CHAPTEK  II 
STUDIES  IN  CONTBASTS 

The  six  days  that  were  spent  by  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Wales  in  the  capital  of  Western  India  are  not, 
I  should  imagine,  likely  to  be  forgotten  by  the  Eoyal 
visitors,  even  if  somewhat  blurred  by  the  panorama  of 
strange  countries  and  picturesque  towns  unrolled  before 
them  during  the  ensuing  weeks.  The  memory  of  these 
days  will,  at  any  rate,  not  easily  be  lost  by  those  who 
were  perhaps  better  able  than  the  illustrious  voyagers 
themselves,  deeply  occupied  with  State  ceremonials,  to 
appreciate  its  curious  and  significant  incidents. 

The  visit,  I  believe,  was  generally  successful.     If  the 
demeanour  of  a  crowd  is  any  index  to  their  feelings,  the 
inhabitants  of  Bombay,  and  the  strangers   within  their 
gates    from    other   parts   of   the   Presidency,   were  un- 
affectedly pleased  to   see  the  future  Emperor  of  India. 
The  throng  that  packed  the  streets  of  the  native  quarter 
from    the    ground    to    the  roofs    was  enthusiastic   and 
animated   as   an  Eastern  populace  seldom  is;   or  so,  at 
least,   we  were   told    by  people    who  hadJ  'seen'   man^ 
Viceregal  processions  and  inaugural  receptions'.     In  tlia 
presence   of    British   notabilities   the    Indian  ;nialtrttfdp 
is  accustomed   to  be   respectful    and    interested  father 
than  demonstrative.     It  stands  in  waiting  rows,  and  looks 
on  fixedly  as  the  scarlet  horsemen  of  the  body-guard,  the 
guns,  the  hussars,  and  the  open  landaus  go  by.     But  for 
the  Prince  and  Princess  there  were  cheers — I  will  not  say 

c 


18  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

loud  and  long,  but  frequent  and  almost  continuous. 
Perhaps  the  Parsis  and  the  Eurasians  may  have  been 
the  fuglemen ;  but  the  Hindus  and  Mohammedans  took 
up  the  strain  and  said  ■  Heep  hourr-a  !  '  and  clapped  their 
hands  as  if  they  had  been  doing  it  all  their  lives. 

It  was  something  of  a  surprise  to  white  residents,  who 
had  felt  doubts  as  to  the  possible  attitude  of  Bombay,  for 
the  great  city  is  known  to  contain  elements,  not  perhaps 
of  disloyalty,  but  of  disaffection.  The  local  ruling  chiefs 
are  not  men  of  the  calibre  and  distinction  of  the  Princes 
of  Eajputana  and  Central  India,  nor  have  they  accepted 
the  Imperial  system  with  so  much  cordiality.  The  most 
important  of  them,  the  Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  whom  a  large 
section  of  the  Guzerati  population  regard  with  a  certain 
reverence,  is  somewhat  out  of  favour  with  the  Govern- 
ment. The  Mahrattas,  a  restless,  shifty,  suspicious  race, 
have  never  been  quite  reconciled  to  the  loss  of  the  supre- 
macy they  once  exercised  over  half  India.  Poona  is  a 
centre  of  intrigue,  and  even  sedition,  and  the  Poona 
Brahman  is  banefully  busy  in  Bombay. 

Some  experienced  persons  were  a  little  anxious.  As 
the  event  showed,  they  could  have  dismissed  their  fears. 
There  was  every  outward  sign  that  the  people  of  all 
tribes  and  classes  were  glad  to  welcome  the  son  of  their 
Sovereign.  The  loyalty  of  the  Indian  is  largely  a  personal 
attachment  to  a  family  and  dynasty.  To  him  the  Boyal 
office  means  a  great  deal ;  he  ascribes  to  it  a  kind  of 
.Divine-  authority,  if  not  a  Divine  origin ;  whereas  the 
'.yicerpy; op  j;he' Governor,  the  '  Lord  Sahib  '  though  he  be, 
\s ,  only.  .a.  mortal .  like  himself,  perhaps  the  first  of  the 
Kj4g«s^et'ya5ats,,.(bi;<i  a  servant  after  all. 

The  show  part  of  the  ceremonial  was,  on  the  whole, 
well  done.;  the  stage  management,  if  one  may  use  the 
term,  was  skilful.  I  heard  only  a  single  adverse  criticism, 
and  it  is  characteristic  enough  to  be   reproduced.     An 


STUDIES  IN   CONTRASTS  19 

able  member  of  the  non-official  community,  a  man  of 
thirty  years'  Indian  residence,  said  that  the  natives 
were  a  little  surprised  to  find  the  Prince  driving  through 
the  town  in  the  ordinary  white  Indian  uniform  and 
helmet,  which  every  Englishman  wears  in  the  sunny 
hours  of  the  day,  which  is  borne  by  private  soldiers 
and  shop-assistants,  and  is  sometimes  used  by  Eurasian 
clerks. 

I  had  the  same  testimony  from  natives.  They  ex- 
pected to  see  the  heir  to  the  Empire  blazing  in  scarlet 
and  adorned  with  stars  and  orders.  The  full  gala  array 
of  a  field-marshal,  with  cocked  hat  and  plumes,  would 
have  been  appreciated.  And  my  informants  thought 
that  it  would  have  given  additional  lustre  to  the  procession 
in  native  eyes  if  all  the  rajas  and  feudatory  chiefs,  in  their 
silks  and  jewels,  had  driven  behind  the  Koyal  carriage. 
As  it  was,  the  body-guard  and  the  hussars  were  no  more 
than  the  populace  see  every  time  the  Governor  performs 
some  public  function,  rather  less  than  they  can  witness 
when  the  Viceroy  comes  into  the  city  in  state.  In  India 
greatness  is  supposed  to  live  and  move  amid  pomp  and 
pageantry.  That  austere  simplicity,  behind  which  the 
reality  of  power  is  often  veiled  in  the  West,  is  not 
understood  or  valued  by  Orientals. 

The  interest  of  the  whole  occasion  was  keenly  felt  by 
those  who  were  allowed  to  participate  in  the  various 
parades  and  festivals  without  being  oppressed  by  the 
weight  of  official  duty.  A  private  individual,  in  this 
situation,  with  leisure  to  observe,  could  not  fail  to  find 
himself  sometimes  obsessed  by  a  curious  and  piquant 
sense  of  unreality.  One  seemed  to  be  living  in  several 
different  worlds  at  once,  passing  from  Earl's  Court  to  the 
Arabian  Nights  and  back  again,  touching  various  other 
places  and  periods  in  transit.  At  the  Byculla  Club  ball, 
for  instance,  you  could  easily  forget  that  you  were  in 

c  2 


20  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

Asia.  *  No  native  need  apply ?  might  be  the  inscription 
over  the  portals  of  the  Byculla,  as  of  every  other  impor- 
tant club  in  the  East.  Consequently  the  ball  was 
altogether  British  and  insular.  The  large,  solid,  square 
saloon,  built  in  the  late  'thirties  of  the  last  century, 
might  have  been  the  assembly-room  of  a  fashionable 
watering-place  or  a  provincial  town  in  the  Midlands. 
The  company  was  in  keeping  with  the  place.  There  was 
the  usual  array  of  black  coats  and  white  shoulders, 
military  officers  in  smart  mess-jackets  and  spurs,  naval 
men  in  blue  and  gold,  the  Chief  Justice  creditably  legal, 
the  Bishop  blandly  episcopal,  broad  blue  ribbons  across 
expansive  shirt-fronts,  and  diamond  tiaras  gleaming  above 
blonde  or  chestnut  '  transformations.*  There  was  a  state 
quadrille  and  many  valses,  and  some  strolling  or  sitting 
out  in  the  grounds,  and  much  supping  off  salmon  and 
mayonnaise  and  champagne.  There  was  hardly  anything 
to  remind  you  of  India — nothing,  indeed,  but  the  native 
servants  and  the  troopers  of  the  body-guard,  tall  Sikhs 
and  bearded  Mohammedans,  in  gorgeous  scarlet  and  blue, 
standing  like  statues  by  their  lances  in  the  corridors,  and 
gazing  in  a  kind  of  savage  bewilderment  at  the  scene 
before  them. 

Or  take  the  day  of  the  great  reception  at  Government 
House,  a  day  in  which  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  sampled 
several  very  varied  phases  of  life.  In  the  morning,  a 
friend  took  me  to  call  on  a  Mohammedan  chief,  who  had 
come  down  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  Prince.  His  High- 
ness, a  man  of  immense  stature,  with  a  massive  forcible 
face,  like  that  of  one  of  the  granite  Pharaohs  in  the 
Egyptian  temples,  spoke  no  English,  and  had  never 
been  outside  India,  seldom  indeed  outside  his  own  tiny 
principality.  But  he  was  full  of  intelligence  and  a 
genuine  kingly  feeling — a  sensible  man,  with  some  of  the 
ideas  of  a  born  ruler,  and  certainly  all  the  manner  of  one. 


STUDIES  IN   CONTRASTS  21 

Through  the  interpreter  he  told  me  of  his  little  State,  of 
the  difficulties  he  had  had  with  famine  and  plague,  of  his 
farming  and  his  shooting,  and  his  somewhat  primitive 
methods  of  administering  justice  and  promoting  educa- 
tion. I  left  his  Highness's  presence  to  go  and  look  at  his 
Highness's  future  Suzerain  laying  the  foundation-stone 
of  a  new  public  institution.  There  were  speeches  and 
addresses,  and  frock-coats  and  tall  hats,  and  the  handling 
of  a  trowel  and  plumb-rule,  and  the  declaration  that 
the  block  was  well  and  truly  laid.  It  was  all  familiar 
enough. 

Familiar,  too,  was  the  long  line  of  slowly  moving 
carriages  making  their  way  towards  the  doors  of  Govern- 
ment House  for  the  evening  fete.  The  road  runs 
through  the  gardens  and  close  above  the  shore,  and  one 
had  time  to  admire  the  singular  beauty  of  the  Back  Bay 
of  Bombay.  Past  the  lithe  graceful  stems  and  over 
the  feathered  heads  of  palm-trees,  the  eye  travelled  across 
a  space  of  still  water,  glimmering  in  the  cool  moonshine, 
and  beyond  that  to  the  crescent  of  silver  light  on  the 
opposite  strand  of  the  bay.  Where  a  cross-road  joined 
the  main  avenue  there  was  a  patch  of  bare  earth,  and  on 
it  a  man  and  a  woman  lay  fast  asleep,  careless  of  the 
long  train  of  carriages,  of  the  lamps,  the  clatter,  the  hoarse 
cries  of  the  marshalling  police.  But  here  we  are  at 
Government  House,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  and 
promiscuous  throng  of  Europeans,  Parsis,  Hindus,  ladies, 
turbaned  chiefs,  military  uniforms.  It  takes  long  to  pass 
through  the  crush,  an  hour  or  more  of  waiting  to  get 
started  again  homeward,  while  carriages,  with  pawing 
horses,  are  brought  up,  loaded,  and  sent  away,  amid  a 
scene  of  confusion  pleasantly  reminiscent  of  Park  Lane  in 
the  season. 

It  is  the  Arabian  Nights  again  as  we  drive  through 
the  native  city,  with  its  variegated  crowd,  its  medley  of 


22  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

shifting  light  and  wavering  shadow.  And  then  we  pass 
out  on  to  the  Maidan,  or  open  public  garden,  where  a 
Fancy  Fair  is  being  held  in  honour  of  the  Prince's  visit, 
and  it  is  an  aggravated  Bank  Holiday  with  the  most 
fantastic  local  adjuncts.  I  step  through  an  aggressive 
triumphal  arch,  inscribed  with  the  motto  '  Duo  in  Uno ' 
and  adorned  with  female  transparencies  emblematic  of 
Britannia  and  India,  and  find  myself  back  in  a  con- 
torted Cockneydom.  There  is  a  switchback  railway, 
roundabouts,  four  great  wooden  towers  entwined  with 
coloured  glow-lamps  ;  there  are  booths  and  stalls  where 
they  sell  cheap  German  glass,  imitation  meerschaum 
pipes,  ferocious  neckties,  fiery  perfumes,  and  other 
triumphs  of  "Western  skill  and  taste ;  there  are  shooting- 
galleries  and  fortune-telling  booths ;  and  there  is  a  cafe 
chantant,  with  a  high-class  performance  by  the  Sisters 
Somebody,  warranted  of  London. 

The  Fair  is  deliriously  popular  with  the  natives,  who 
come  in  shoals.  They  are  of  all  ranks  and  classes — 
plutocrats  who  can  pay  their  rupee  a  ride  on  the  switch- 
back without  wincing,  young  Parsi  clerks  from  the  banks 
and  railway  offices,  families  from  the  country  districts 
moving  about  rather  bewildered  amid  all  the  splendour. 
Two  elders  of  the  village  will  be  holding  each  other  by 
the  hand  for  better  security,  while  their  wives  and  a  little 
company  of  children  follow  close  on  their  footsteps.  Tall 
Arabs  and  brawny  Eajputs  elbow  Tommy  Atkins  from  the 
standing  camps  on  the  Esplanade  and  negro  sailors  from 
the  docks.  The  shooting-galleries,  the  try-your- weight 
machines,  the  sham-finery  shops,  are  beset  by  customers. 
As  I  went  out  I  nearly  knocked  over  an  old  Mussulman 
with  a  beard  stained  red  and  a  green  turban — the  signs  of 
sainthood — gravely  trailing  by  a  string  a  couple  of  inflated 
air-bladders.  Then  I  found  my  gharry  again,  and  as  I 
drove  home  I  saw  two  men  in  white  raiment  bestriding 


STUDIES  IN   CONTRASTS  23 

the  same  mule,  and  another  man,  with  no  raiment  at  all 
but  a  wisp  of  waistcloth,  accurately  and  punctiliously- 
washing  a  huge  drab  Guzerati  buffalo  in  the  open  street. 
Who  will  deny  that  Bombay  is  rich  in  contrasts  ?  But 
so  is  all  India. 

Indeed,  to  one  who  has  never  been  in  Eastern  Asia 
before,  almost  any  great  Indian  city  is  a  weird  revelation. 
The  Prince  of  Wales  during  his  sojourn  in  Bombay  was 
shown  the  docks,  and  the  harbour  and  new  street,  and  the 
cathedral,  and  doubtless  his  attention  was  directed  to  the 
Victoria  Terminus  and  the  Clock  Tower,  the  Town  Hall 
and  the  Courts  of  Justice.  But  these  are  not  the  things 
most  worth  seeing ;  and  I  should  venture  to  doubt 
whether  any  of  them  interested  his  Boyal  Highness  nearly 
so  much  as  his  drives  through  the  native  quarters. 

For  the  thing  to  see  in  Bombay  is  Bombay  itself.  It 
has  no  sight  to  show,  no  spectacle  to  offer,  at  all  equal  to 
that  presented  by  its  own  streets,  seething  with  miscel- 
laneous humanity,  especially  if  one  can  examine  them  at 
leisure  and  on  foot,  mingling  with  the  populace  and 
peering  into  the  open  houses.  In  the  East  people  do  not 
live  in  sealed  compartments,  and  the  front  door,  the  shield 
of  our  own  cherished  domesticity,  can  hardly  be  said  to 
exist.  The  climate  and  the  local  habits  are  opposed  to  it. 
Before  the  sun  has  risen,  or  after  his  setting,  everybody 
seeks  space  and  air  and  coolness  out  of  doors ;  nor  is 
there  any  jealous  shrinking  from  observation,  even  in  the 
daytime.  People  do  all  sorts  of  things  in  public  which 
to  our  thinking  should  be  transacted  in  privacy,  such  as 
dressing,  shaving,  washing,  and  sleeping,  and,  in  spite  of 
the  caste  rules  and  religious  restrictions,  even  a  good  deal 
of  eating. 

Going  into  one  of  the  large  sheds  in  the  quarter  of 
Bombay  where  the  hand-loom  weavers  carry  on  their 
work,  I  saw  two  men  crouching  in  the  dust  by  the  outside 


24  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

wall.  They  proved  to  be  a  barber  and  his  client.  The 
latter  was  naked  to  the  waist ;  the  barber,  a  respectable 
old  gentleman  in  robe  and  turban,  was  sitting  on  the 
ground  beside  his  victim,  on  whom  he  was  operating  in  a 
very  complete  fashion,  passing  his  razor  not  merely  over 
the  chin,  but  over  the  head,  arms,  and  shoulders,  and 
performing  the  whole  toilet  in  full  view  of  passers-by  and 
of  various  other  persons  engaged  in  minor  manufacturing 
or  domestic  avocations  at  intervals  of  a  few  yards  along 
the  wall  of  the  shed.  So  it  is  everywhere.  As  you  pass 
along  the  streets  of  the  bazaar  you  can  look  right  into 
half  the  houses.  The  shops  are  simply  boxes,  set  on  end, 
with  the  lids  off.  You  can,  if  you  please,  stand  and  watch 
the  baker  rolling  his  flat  loaves,  the  tailor  stitching  and 
cutting,  the  coppersmith  hammering  at  his  bowls  and 
dishes,  the  jeweller  drawing  out  gold  and  silver  wire  over 
his  little  brazier.  The  Indian  townsman  does  not  mind 
being  looked  at.  He  is  accustomed  to  it.  He  passes  his 
life  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd. 

And  that,  to  go  back  to  the  point  from  which  I  started, 
is  what  strikes  the  newcomer  from  the  West  most  keenly. 
After  a  time,  I  suppose,  he  ceases  to  notice  it,  as  we  cease 
to  notice  anything  which  is  before  us  constantly.  (It  is 
not  every  married  man  of  twenty  years'  standing  who 
could  tell  you  off-hand  the  colour  of  his  wife's  eyes.)  But 
upon  the  novice  this  sense  of  crowded  humanity  presses 
like  an  obsession,  a  nightmare,  as  he  walks  through  the 
native  streets  in  the  noonday  furnace,  or  at  the  cool  of 
morning,  or  amid  the  restlessness  of  the  closing  night. 
The  amazement  which  is  his  first  feeling,  the  admiration 
for  varied  forms  and  bold  colour  that  succeeds  it,  give 
way  to  a  kind  of  horror  as  he  sees  all  this  brown, 
common,  unregarded  swarm  poured  out  upon  the  ground 
like  locusts,  crawling  in  and  out  of  every  chink  and 
cranny  like  ants,  filling  every  vacant  space.     You  cannot 


STUDIES   IN   CONTRASTS  25 

cast  your  eye  into  any  corner  but  you  find  a  man  there,  if 
it  is  not  a  woman  or  a  child. 

If  there  is  a  spare  decorative  niche  in  the  wall  of  a 
building,  the  odds  are  that  you  will  find  a  man  or  boy 
huddled  up  there.  In  any  little  patch  of  vacant  ground 
there  are  thick  groups  of  squatters  by  day  and  sleepers  by 
night.  People  roost  for  hours  on  the  edges  of  the  pave- 
ment, or  on  any  fragment  of  sill  or  low  wall,  sitting 
motionless  upon  their  heels,  with  their  hands  stretched  out 
over  their  knees,  looking  strangely  like  crows  or  vultures. 
The  European  will  find  the  attitude  so  constrained  and 
uncomfortable  that  he  cannot  endure  it  beyond  a  few 
minutes,  if,  indeed,  he  can  get  into  it  at  all.  The  native, 
apparently,  can  maintain  this  posture  all  day.  The 
Westerner,  when  he  has  work  to  do,  likes  to  stand  up 
to  it.  The  native  sits  or  lies,  or  crouches  down,  whether 
he  be  sewing  or  using  the  hammer  and  chisel,  or  cleaning 
a  vessel,  or  dusting  a  room,  or  mending  a  garment.  The 
scribe  sits  down  on  the  floor  to  write  a  letter.  The  mali, 
or  gardener,  grovels  over  the  flower-beds  to  grub  up  weeds 
or  plant  his  roses.  It  seems  as  if  they  could  not  get  too 
close  to  the  warm  and  teeming  bosom  of  the  elemental 
Mother  from  whom  they  have  sprung. 

It  is  not  the  throng  poured  forth  on  some  special 
occasion  which  moves  one's  wonder  so  much  as  the  con- 
course that  perpetually  besets  the  streets  and  houses. 
The  formal  crowd  assembled  to  witness  a  spectacle  is  not 
greater  than  can  be  seen  elsewhere.  There  were  vast  hordes 
of  people  on  the  route  through  which  the  Prince  of 
Wales  drove  in  his  public  progresses,  but  not  by  any 
means  enough  to  excite  the  astonishment  of  a  Londoner 
by  their  numbers,  though  every  window  and  cranny  and 
chink  in  the  house-fronts  showed  a  turban ed  head  or  a 
brilliant  robe,  and  men  clung  like  apes  to  every  projecting 
timber  and  carved   balustrade,   and    perched   with   the 


26  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

sparrows  on  eaves  and  sloping  roofs.  An  Indian  crowd, 
it  is  true,  is  larger  than  it  looks.  There  is  no  attempt 
to  leave  air-space  or  elbow-room  between  its  constituent 
units;  the  natives  are  accustomed  to  get  close  together, 
and  have  no  prejudices  against  intimate  personal  contact, 
as  anybody  can  see  who  has  watched  them  packing  them- 
selves into  a  railway-carriage  or  a  bullock-cart.  Between 
the  desire  to  secure  good  places  and  the  rough  pressure 
of  the  police,  the  throng  is  kneaded  into  a  soft  compact 
mass,  knees,  backs,  and  arms  laced  into  one  another,  so 
that  it  occupies  the  minimum  amount  of  space  and  stand- 
ing-room. 

Making  due  allowances  for  these  circumstances,  the 
Bombay  hosts  were  not  to  be  compared  to  those 
London  turns  out  to  witness  a  coronation  or  a  Eoyal 
funeral  or  a  Mafeking  demonstration.  But  the  Eastern 
crowd  has  no  need  to  assemble.  It  is  always  mobilised 
and  in  marching  order.  Unending  streams  of  people  pass 
through  the  streets,  by  units,  or  in  couples,  or  small 
groups,  or  sit  immovable,  hour  after  hour.  Not  till  you 
get  to  Asia  do  you  realise  how  cheap  the  human  animal 
can  be,  and  how  easily  man -power,  of  a  certain  limited 
kind,  is  to  be  had.  In  this  part  of  India  one  does  not 
notice  many  elderly  people.  They  age  too  fast  to  grow 
old  ;  for  the  women  of  the  labouring  class  are  worked 
out  at  thirty-five  or  forty,  the  men  under  fifty,  and  I 
suppose  they  die  before  they  can  become  grey-headed. 

But  perhaps  the  most  marvellous  thing  about  these 
people  to  the  Western  eye  is  the  way  they  sleep.  It  is 
an  unending  source  of  wonder  and  awe,  this  capacity  of 
the  Indian  native  for  slumber  under  all  sorts  of  condi- 
tions. Sleep  comes  to  him  without  any  of  the  allure- 
ments and  amenities  with  which  it  is  wooed  by  us. 
The  poorest  of  European  day  labourers  needs  a  bed  and 
bed-furniture,  if   not  a  bedroom.     The  Indian   manages 


ctcct 

it 


C  C  (   c 

r  (  (•(. 

c    C   ( 

«  c  ca 
c  c  c  c 


STUDIES  IN   CONTRASTS  27 

contentedly  without  all  three.  He  will  throw  himself 
down,  like  a  dog,  on  the  bare  earth,  and  sleep  the  night 
through  without  a  movement.  We  say  that  he  has  no 
nerves,  which  may  or  may  not  be  the  explanation. 

The  poorer  native,  of  the  labouring  or  menial  class, 
sleeps  where  he  can,  anywhere  and  everywhere.  At 
Agra  I  went  with  a  friend  to  look  at  the  Taj  Mahal  by 
moonlight.  We  left  our  carriage  waiting  for  us  outside 
the  great  gate.  When  we  emerged,  we  saw  this  vehicle 
and  its  horses  standing  under  the  trees ;  but  the  coach- 
man we  did  not  see.  We  called  him  loudly  and  more 
loudly,  we  searched  the  shadowy  courtyard  under  the 
glimmering  moonlight,  we  peered  into  the  carriage  and 
under  it,  with  no  result.  At  last  it  occurred  to  us  to 
examine  the  driver's  seat,  a  perch  about  two  feet  long  and 
twelve  inches  wide  ;  and  there,  sure  enough,  close  inspec- 
tion revealed  a  minute  bundle,  which  on  being  fiercely 
prodded  and  shaken  uncoiled  itself  and  sat  up  and  became 
the  missing  charioteer. 

Your  own  personal  attendant,  valet,  or  '  bearer  ' — a 
functionary  of  a  certain  standing — will  sleep  night  after 
night  with  no  better  accommodation  than  the  mat  out- 
side your  bedroom  door.  He  does  not  undress  when  he 
lies  down ;  he  apparently  does  not  wash  when  he  gets  up  ; 
yet  he  is  moderately  tidy  to  look  upon,  he  is  quite  as  clean 
in  his  person  as  most  English  servants,  and  if  his  white 
garments  are  not  spotless  you  are  entitled  to  revile  him. 
In  one  of  the  hotels  in  which  I  stayed,  the  floors  of 
the  passages  were  laid  with  porcelain  tesselated  tiles, 
hard  as  steel  and  shiny  as  glass  ;  but  all  over  them  were 
men  extended  at  length,  sometimes  upon  a  thin  cotton 
sheet,  more  often  with  nothing  under  or  over  them. 
Outside  the  building,  on  the  verandahs,  the  steps,  the 
courtyard,  the  bare  earth  of  the  stables  and  offices,  were 
other  slumbering  forms.     At  every  dark  corner  protruded 


28  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

a  brown  leg  and  foot  from  under  a  white  wrapper.  If 
there  is  no  other  place  for  him,  an  Indian  will  sleep 
contentedly  in  the  open  street  or  the  channel  of  the 
pavement.  At  the  Festival  of  the  Diwali,  when  all  the 
bazaars  were  blazing  with  lamps  and  alive  with  people, 
I  saw  men  lying  fast  asleep  on  the  bulkheads  of 
shops  and  in  open  doorways.  The  noises,  the  lights, 
the  passing  crowds  that  brushed  their  garments,  left 
them  undisturbed.  They  slept  as  animals  sleep, 
with  the  same  indifference  to  comfort,  the  same  dead 
immobility. 

It  is  this  carelessness  of  the  amenities  of  the  bed- 
chamber that  somewhat  qualifies  one's  view  of  the  Indian 
slum-dwelling.  Bombay,  where  plague  is  still  endemic, 
and  was  taking  its  victims  not  long  since  at  the  rate  of  a 
thousand  a  week,  has  its  congested  quarter,  where  people 
are  packed  more  closely  than  in  almost  any  place  outside 
China  and  a  few  other  Indian  cities.  The  municipality 
and  the  City  Improvement  Trust  have  made  great  efforts 
to  clean  the  worst  area.  They  have  opened  out  the 
nests  of  courts  and  alleys  by  running  fine  broad  streets 
through  them,  and  erecting  blocks  of  model  chawls,  or 
tenement  dwellings,  to  provide  accommodation,  which 
is  at  least  sanitary,  for  those  who  have  been  displaced. 

Under  the  guidance  of  an  English  resident,  who  has 
studied  Bombay  long  and  closely,  accompanied  by  a  sani- 
tary inspector  and  an  able  young  Hindu  medical  man  in 
the  service  of  the  Corporation,  I  was  taken  to  see  some 
of  the  dwellings  in  the  condemned  and  congested  district. 
I  confess  I  was  less  impressed  than  perhaps  my  friends 
expected  ;  for  I  have  seen  slum  areas  and  municipal  clear- 
ances nearer  home,  and  for  pure  filth,  foulness,  degrada- 
tion, and  outward  misery  I  am  afraid  that  London  has 
more  painful  sights  to  show  than  those  which  were 
brought  before  me  in  Bombay. 


STUDIES   IN   CONTRASTS  29 

The  houses  I  saw  had  been  visited  by  the  plague  again 
and  again ;  on  many  a  doorpost  was  the  red  circle,  with 
date  within,  which  is  the  sign  that  the  pestilence  had 
done  its  work  and  claimed  its  victim.  On  some  of  the 
lintels  there  were  as  many  as  five  or  six  of  these  marks 
of  doom.  The  houses  were  rabbit-warrens,  with  a  family 
or  two  families  to  every  room.  And  these  rooms  them- 
selves were  mere  oblong  cavities — low,  dark,  cavernous, 
sometimes  all  but  windowless.  There  was  no  chimney ; 
the  fireplace  consisted  of  a  few  bricks  or  stones  piled  up 
in  a  corner ;  the  floors  were  of  hardened  cow-dung,  which 
is  the  kind  of  flooring  that  breeds  the  plague  infection,  and 
gives  a  resting-place  to  the  rats  that  carry  it.  There 
was  usually  no  bed  and  no  bedding,  and  often  no  more 
furniture  than  a  couple  of  wooden  chests  and  a  cord  on 
which  clothes  were  suspended. 

It  sounds  bad  enough ;  and  yet,  as  I  have  said,  to 
those  who  have  seen  European  slums  it  might  have  been 
worse.  For,  poor  as  it  was,  there  was  an  absence  of  some 
of  those  pretences  at  civilisation  which  make  urban 
poverty  so  much  more  horrible.  You  could  go  in  and  out 
of  the  rooms  without  being  appalled  by  spectacles  of  de- 
grading indecency.  There  were  no  broken  leg-less  chairs, 
cracked  crockery,  fragments  of  carpet  and  wall-paper  be- 
grimed with  indescribable  dirt.  The  cow-dung  floors  were 
usually  clean,  so  were  the  wooden  chests ;  and  the  brass 
pots  and  bowls  shone  like  burnished  gold.  The  very 
emptiness  of  the  tenements,  the  scanty  and  elementary 
needs  of  the  occupants,  were  in  their  favour.  Sleeping 
largely  out  of  doors,  the  people  had  no  frowsy  mattresses  ; 
tables  they  do  not  want,  or  chairs,  for  they  sit  on  the 
floor,  and  eat  from  it ;  religion  and  custom  prescribe 
cleanliness  for  the  person  and  for  cooking  utensils ;  the 
scanty  drapery  of  a  warm  climate  is  easily  washed.  Poor 
as  they  were,  the  people  seemed  to  retain  a  certain  dignity, 


30  A  VISION   OF   INDIA 

as  if  they  still  felt  themselves  members  of  a  community, 
not  mere  outcasts  from  it.  Poverty,  I  suppose,  has  be- 
come so  habitual  with  the  masses  of  an  Eastern  popula- 
tion that  they  can  accept  it  as  the  normal  state  of  things. 
It  does  not  seem  to  bring  with  it  the  hopeless  degrada- 
tion which  it  produces  in  societies  where  the  require- 
ments of  all  men  are  less  simple  and  the  general  standard 
of  comfort  higher. 


31 


CHAPTEE  III 
BOMBAY:   THE  WHITE   MAN'S  BURDEN 

To  the  passing  visitor,  the  casual  globe-trotter,  pro- 
vided with  good  introductions — and  without  these  it  is 
hardly  worth  his  while  to  come  to  India  at  all — the  life 
of  the  European  resident  in  Bombay  must  seem,  at  first 
view,  distinctly  agreeable.  He  has  a  noble  town  to  live 
in,  full  of  life  and  movement,  with  good  clubs,  yachting, 
golf,  tennis,  bridge  to  taste,  some  music,  feminine  society, 
much  dancing.  When  he  needs  a  change  he  can  run  up 
to  some  hill  village  among  the  Western  Ghats,  and  feast 
his  eyes  upon  the  castellated  sierras,  the  bold,  upstanding 
peaks,  and  rugged  rock-crowned  kopjes  of  the  mountain 
land.  The  climate  is  fair,  and  tempered  by  the  sea- 
breeze,  if  a  little  too  warm  and  sticky  at  a  season  which 
the  judicious  tourist  usually  avoids. 

The  said  tourist  will  be  much  gratified  by  his  first 
dinner-party,  especially  if  it  takes  place  at  a  bungalow  on 
Malabar  Hill.  The  main  part  of  the  city  lies  low  among 
the  flats  and  reclaimed  marsh  lands  of  its  island  site. 
But  towards  its  south-western  extremity  the  island  throws 
out  a  horn  into  the  sea,  and  here  the  ground  rises  to  a 
height  of  three  hundred  feet.  At  the  point  of  the  spur  is 
Government  House ;  close  to  it  is  the  famous  Hindu 
temple  of  Walkeshwar,  to  which  pilgrims  resort  from  all 
parts  of  India.  When  the  ladies  of  Government  House 
drive  out  to  play  croquet  at  the  Gymkhana  Club,  they  pass 
groups  of  these  worshippers  streaming  from  the  shrine, 


32  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

with  the  caste-marks  newly  painted  on  their  foreheads, 
and  some  of  them  with  the  staves  and  bowls  and  wallets 
which  show  that  they  have  travelled  from  a  far  country. 
All  along  the  ridge  are  the  best  and  most  desirable  houses 
in  Bombay,  the  houses  where  Europeans  like  to  live, 
because  of  the  air,  and  the  gardens,  and  the  views  over 
the  town,  the  Back  Bay  and  the  open  waters  of  the 
Indian  Ocean. 

In  the  cool  evening  light  the  visitor  drives  up  from 
the  noisy  streets  and  the  swarming  bazaars  of  Bombay. 
The  breeze  quickens  as  he  reaches  the  upper  levels,  and 
he  sees  trim  villas  set  back  among  palms  and  lotos-trees 
and  the  Indian  acacia  with  its    sumptuous    blossoms. 
Presently  he   finds  himself   at  his  friend's  house,  and 
wonders  why  it  should  be  called  a  bungalow,  which  to 
him  suggests  some  sort  of  makeshift  erection,  flimsy  and 
impermanent.     But  the  Malabar  Hill  bungalow  is  quite 
likely  to  be  a  solid  brick-and-stone  building,  with  spacious 
and  lofty  apartments.     The  best  bedroom  is  as  large  as 
an   ordinary   London   drawing-room,   the  drawing-room 
the  size  of  a  small  Dissenting  chapel.     The  floor  is  of 
coloured  tiles  and  porcelain,  the  walls  painted  in  creamy 
yellow,  and  a  great  gold-fringed  punkah  sweeps  overhead. 
White-robed  attendants  glide  about  on  noiseless  feet, 
and  serve  an  excellent  dinner.    Ice,  still  a  rarity  in  the 
hottest  London  summer,  is  as  common  in  India  as  in  the 
United  States,  and  the  cold  blocks  chink  musically  in  the 
glasses  as  the  Mohammedan  butler  pours  out  champagne. 
There  is  not  much  furniture  in  the  large  rooms,  but 
probably  a  fine  Delhi  or  Cashmere  rug  or  two,  some  old 
metal  work,  and  a  handsome  bureau  or  table  carved  from 
the  local  blackwood.     After  dinner  the  company  sit  out 
on  the  longest  of  long  chairs  in  the  deepest  of  deep 
verandahs,  and  always  there  are  the  same  soft-footed 
ministers  at  hand  to  tender  the  soothing  cigarette,  and 


I 


BOMBAY:  THE  WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN     33 

prepare  the  welcome  peg  of  whisky  and  soda.  The 
gratified  guest  sits  and  smokes,  and  drinks,  and  listens  to 
the  many  voices  of  the  Indian  night,  and  gazes  on  the 
lights  of  the  shipping,  sprinkled  like  fireflies  over  the 
dark  waters  far  below,  and  across  to  the  opposite  shores 
of  the  Back  Bay  outlined  in  points  of  silver.  He  may  be 
excused  for  thinking  that  he  has  drifted  into  something 
like  an  earthly  Paradise ;  and  he  marvels  the  more  when 
he  reflects  that  his  entertainer  is  no  millionaire  or  prince 
or  great  noble,  but  only  a  bank  manager,  or  a  transport 
agent,  or  perhaps  an  official  who  at  home  would  be 
nothing  more  dignified  than  a  somewhat  superior  clerk 
in  the  Treasury. 

But  when  he  has  been  a  few  days  in  Bombay  he 
will  discover  that  his  satisfaction  is  by  no  means  shared 
by  his  European  friends.  He  will  perceive  that  they  are 
suffering  under  an  irritating  sense  of  grievance,  all  the 
more  annoying  since  they  do  not  see  their  way  to  a 
remedy.  For  one  thing,  they  will  speedily  inform  him 
that  his  earthly  Paradise  is  pretty  nearly  Paradise  Lost, 
so  far  as  they  are  concerned.  The  time  was  when  all 
Malabar  Hill,  with  its  adjacent  ridges,  was  given  up 
solely  to  European  habitation.  The  native  lay  swelter- 
ing in  the  narrow  streets  of  the  low-lying  bazaar  quarter, 
huddled  up  in  the  cramped,  insalubrious,  Eastern  fashion  ; 
the  Englishman  lived  spaciously  at  his  ease  on  the  airy 
uplands. 

But  all  this  has  changed.  The  native  has  made 
money,  he  has  enlarged  his  ideas,  and  he  has  been  tho- 
roughly scared  by  the  plague.  When  he  discovered  that 
people  died  like  flies  in  the  bazaars,  while  the  Sahibs, 
behind  their  roomy  compounds,  enjoyed  comparative 
immunity,  he  quietly  went  to  work  to  turn  these  same 
Sahibs  out.  As  he  holds  nearly  all  the  land  and  most  of 
the  money,  he  found  no  great  difficulty  in  the  task.   When 

D 


r> 


34  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

a  lease  determined  or  a  house  fell  vacant  on  the  ridges 
he  stepped  in.  If  he  owned  the  site  himself,  he  occupied 
it,  and  refused  to  entertain  any  offer  from  an  European  ; 
if  it  belonged  to  a  compatriot,  he  tendered  a  price  far 
beyond  the  resources  of  the  civilians  and  the  soldiers,  or 
even  those  of  the  mercantile  agents  and  business  men. 

The  result  is  that  to-day  the  English  bungalows  on 
Malabar  Hill  and  Cumballa  Hill  may  almost  be  counted 
on  the  fingers.  Nearly  all  the  finest  houses  are  occupied 
by  natives,  who  live  there  in  great  style,  with  their  horses, 
their  carriages,  their  motor-cars,  and  their  married  sons 
and  daughters  to  the  second  and  third  generation.  Small 
tradesmen  and  baniyas,  who  know  no  better,  or  who 
prefer  to  stick  to  the  ancient  ways,  coolies  and  weavers, 
who  cannot  help  themselves,  may  keep  to  the  bazaar 
region ;  the  wealthy  native  does  not  mean  to  catch 
plague  if  he  can  help  it,  and  he  will  have  a  house  on  the 
hills,  while  there  are  houses  to  be  had.  The  Englishman 
complains  bitterly  that  he  has  no  room  to  live.  At  his 
moderate  salary  he  cannot  compete  with  his  affluent 
brown  competitor.  For  him  the  Parsi  land  speculator 
builds  blocks  of  flats  down  near  the  sea-front,  and  he  has 
to  pay  a  relatively  high  rent  for  his  three  or  four  stuffy 
rooms,  and  be  glad  to  get  them,  while  his  landlord  looks 
down  upon  him  from  his  eyrie  three  miles  away.  There 
has  been  something  like  a  house  famine  in  Bombay  of 
late,  and  Europeans  have  been  driven  to  camp  out  on  the 
Maidan,  or  to  live  permanently  and  unsatisfactorily  in 
rooms  at  the  hotels. 

If  you  listen  to  your  resentful  European  informants, 
they  will  tell  you  that  this  is  only  typical  of  what  is 
happening  generally  in  Bombay.  The  white  man,  they 
say,  is  being  '  crowded  out,'  and  the  native  is  establishing 
his  ascendency.  You  hear  the  case  put  in  various  ways, 
according  to  the  temper  and  temperament  of  those  who 


BOMBAY:  THE   WHITE   MAN'S  BURDEN  35 

formulate  it.       '  All   d d  nonsense,   Sir ! '    says  the 

colonel  at  the  club,  over  his  third  peg  of  whisky  and  soda. 
1  These  blank  niggers  are  getting  the  upper  hand.  They 
think  themselves  as  good  as  we  are,  and  we  encourage 
them  with  our  rotten  new-fangled  notions.  They  want 
keeping  in  their  places,  or  they  will  turn  us  out  of  ours, 
confound  them ! '  The  urbane  officer's  views  are  expressed 
in  a  less  crude,  but  equally  significant  fashion,  by  more 
discriminating  observers.  One  of  the  cleverest  ladies  in 
Bombay — an  '  European,'  according  to  the  technical 
classification,  but  in  fact  an  American — said  to  me : 
1  There  is  a  native  conspiracy  against  you  here — a  con- 
spiracy to  get  the  best  of  everything  and  leave  the  worst 
to  the  English.' 

Most  residents,  whether  they  believed  in  the  existence 
of  this  complot  or  not,  would  probably  take  the  same 
view  as  to  the  facts.  They  would  tell  you  ruefully  that 
the  natives  have  already  obtained  the  best  of  things  in 
Bombay.  They  own,  as  we  have  seen,  the  finest  houses ; 
they  are  monopolising  the  choicest  residential  sites  ;  they 
drive  the  most  expensive  horses,  ride  in  the  showiest 
carriages,  elect  the  majority  of  the  municipality,  run 
the  best  of  the  cotton-mills,  and  every  day  they  are 
getting  more  of  the  profitable  business  of  the  town  into 
their  hands.  Many  of  them  are  extremely  rich,  while 
most  of  the  Europeans  are  rather  poor.  The  English 
are,  in  a  dignified  fashion,  the  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water,  doing  all  the  hard  work  of  govern- 
ment, police,  and  sanitation,  and  toiling  through  the 
sweltering  days  to  maintain  the  ordered  security  under 
which  the  Parsi  and  the  Hindu  merchant  wax  mighty 
and  amass  money. 

Bombay,  in  spite  of  its  splendid  Europeanised  public 
buildings,  is  still  a  native  town,  and  the  natives  are  fully 
conscious  of  the  fact.      The  stranger  who  comes   here 

D   2 


36  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

expecting  to  find  a  handful  of  his  countrymen  lording  it 
over  a  subservient  dusky  population  will  assuredly  be  dis- 
appointed. There  is  not  much  subserviency  about  the 
sturdy  little  natives  of  the  Presidency.  These  descendants 
of  the  Mahratta  raiders,  of  the  Concanese  villagers,  and  of 
the  amphibious  tribesmen  of  the  coast,  are  not  particularly 
good  to  look  at.  They  are  short  and  dark  and  insignifi- 
cant, though  the  women,  as  I  have  said,  are  somewhat 
redeemed,  in  spite  of  their  shrivelled  features,  their  nose- 
rings, and  their  betel-chewing,  by  the  grace  of  their 
draperies  and  the  excellence  of  their  gait.  But  they  are 
rather  self-assertive  folks,  and  their  demeanour  towards 
Europeans  is  not  in  the  least  servile  or  even  respectful. 
If  the  white  man  gets  among  the  seething  crowd  of  the 
bazaars  he  will  have  to  push  his  own  way  through,  and 
he  will  find  himself  handled  with  no  more  ceremony  than 
if  he  were  in  the  Mile-end  Eoad  on  a  Saturday  night. 

Old  Anglo-Indians  shake  their  heads  gloomily  over  the 
change  of  manners,  and  look  back  fondly  to  the  good 
times  when  the  native  left  the  pavement  to  the  white 
people,  and  halted  his  beasts  when  they  wanted  to  cross 
the  road.  He  does  that  still  in  some  of  the  up-country 
districts,  but  not  in  the  Presidency  towns.  He  knows  too 
much  about  the  Sahibs  to  regard  them  with  any  special 
awe.  For  the  white  man .  in  Bombay  is  not  always  a 
ruler  and  an  English  gentleman.  He  maybe  a  tailor's 
cutter  at  the  Stores,  or  an  assistant  at  one  of  the  big 
outfitting  shops,  or  a  German  commercial  traveller,  or  an 
Italian  hotel-manager,  or  the  chauffeur  who  drives  some 
wealthy  Parsi's  motor-car.  It  is  a  very  miscellaneous 
oligarchy,  and  the  native  is  not  much  impressed  by  it, 
and  treats  its  members  with  impartial  indifference,  relying 
on  the  protection  of  the  law.  If  the  Briton  with  a 
remnant  of  the  old  ideas  about  Oriental  subordination 
displays  his  resentment  in  a  forcible  fashion,  there  is  at 


BOMBAY  :   THE  WHITE   MAN'S   BURDEN  37 

hand  a  magistrate,  probably  a  native  himself,  to  right 
the  aggrieved  Asiatic's  wrongs,  with  no  prejudice  in 
favour  of  the  governing  racet  So  our  Aryan  and  Dra vidian 
brethren  are  free  to  wear  gilded  raiment  and  pile  up 
rupees,  while  the  Anglo-Saxon  plods  on  doggedly  in  the 
interest  of  his  subjects,  giving  the  best  years  of  his  life 
for  them  at  a  pittance,  and  going  home  to  die  when  he 
can  work  for  them  no  more. 

We  sometimes  console  ourselves  by  reflecting  that  we 
earn  the  native's  respect  and  gratitude,  if  not  his  affection. 
But  one  cannot  be  quite  sure  even  of  that.  Some  light 
on  this  point  came  to  me  from  a  conversation  I  had  with  a 
highly  intelligent  Hindu  merchant,  not  from  the  Bombay 
Presidency,  but  from  the  Southern  Dekhan.  If  you  can 
get  a  native  to  talk  to  you  at  all,  he  will  often  talk  quite 
freely  and  frankly.  This  man  spoke  English  fluently, 
and  he  made  no  fuss  about  telling  me  all  his  busi- 
ness and  learning  as  much  as  he  could  of  mine.  He 
had  been  in  many  different  trades,  and  had,  appa- 
rently, made  money  out  of  everything.  He  dealt  in 
grain,  he  had  general  stores  here  and  there,  he  financed 
various  industrial  concerns,  and  he  owned  a  lot  of  house 
property.  For  the  English,  as  a  nation,  he  entertained  a 
sentiment  which,  I  think,  was  almost  contemptuous. 
He  liked  us  personally,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  when  he 
contemplated  our  proceedings  they  filled  him  not  so  much 
with  awe  as  with  amazement. 

Indeed,  he  said  as  much.  He  recognised  our  dis- 
tinctive qualities,  but  he  did  not  admire  us  for  them 
so  cordially  as  one  could  have  wished.  He  summed  up 
his  views  in  a  few  concise  sentences.  '  You  English,' 
he  said,  '  are  a  curious  people.  Now  if  it  were 
ordered  that  I  and  the  District  Magistrate  were  set 
down  together,  without  an  anna,  in  a  strange  country, 
he   would    starve,   but    in    three   years   I   should    be   a 


38  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

rich  man  again.'  I  agreed  that  this  was  possible,  but 
suggested  that  matters  might  be  different  if  it  were  a 
question  of  governing  the  hypothetical  land  of  exile. 

My  Hindu  gave  way  there  at  once.  He  admitted  that 
in  this  competition  he  would  be  as  badly  outclassed  as 
the  Englishman  in  the  other.  He  could  not  govern,  he 
confessed ;  it  was  not  his  metier  or  that  of  his  people. 
The  English  could  and  did,  and  he  was  glad  they  devoted 
themselves  to  this  function,  since  it  saved  considerable 
trouble  to  individuals  like  himself,  who  had  other  and,  as 
he  plainly  thought,  worthier  scope  for  their  intellectual 
activities.  Military  officers,  judges,  magistrates,  deputy- 
commissioners,  and  civil  servants  generally,  he  regarded 
without  hostility  but  without  enthusiasm.  How  does 
a  prosperous  professional  man  or  a  manufacturer  in  an 
English  town  feel  towards  the  local  tax  collector,  the 
sanitary  inspector,  the  police  superintendent,  the  borough 
surveyor?  He  knows  these  are  all  useful  functionaries 
doing  necessary  work,  which  he  would  not  in  the  least 
care  to  be  doing  himself ;  but  he  neither  admires  nor 
envies  them.  Such  seemed  to  me  about  the  attitude  of 
this  highly  intelligent  native  towards  the  finest  bureau- 
cracy in  the  world. 

To  see  something  of  native  society  is  easier  in  Bombay 
than  in  any  other  place  in  India,  and  yet  it  is  not  in 
itself  an  easy  thing  even  there.  The  city  is  full  of 
educated,  emancipated  Asiatics,  of  various  denominations, 
many  of  whom  have  gone  a  long  way  towards  assimi- 
lating Western  customs  and  ideas.  I  do  not  refer 
merely  to  the  Parsis ;  there  are  also  in  Bombay  Hindus 
of  high  rank  and  good  standing,  and  even  Moham- 
medans, who  can  associate  familiarly  with  Europeans, 
who  travel  to  England  frequently,  who  take  their  *  cure  ' 
at  Homburg  and  Vichy,  who  know  London  and  Paris, 
who  read  English  books,  play  English  games,  and  some- 


BOMBAY  :   THE    WHITE   MAN'S  BUKDEN  39 

times — though  this  is  an  extreme  step — wear  English 
attire  indoors. 

In  the  streets  they  compromise  by  keeping  to  the 
national  headgear,  a  badge  of  race  and  religion,  which 
a  man  seldom  discards  except  as  an  intimation  that  he 
has  abandoned  both.  Thus  you  will  see  the  Persian 
cap  of  the  Parsis,  or  their  more  distinctive  oil-cloth 
mitre,  above  a  suit  of  tweeds;  and  at  the  Prince  of 
Wales's  levee  a  native  chief  or  sardar  would  sometimes 
appear  in  ordinary  evening  dress  topped  by  a  gorgeous 
jewelled  turban.  One  of  the  most  Anglicised  young 
Parsis  I  met,  an  athlete  and  a  great  cricketer,  apologised 
for  taking  me  round  his  factories  and  offices  wearing  the 
national  cap.  The  members  of  his  community  would  not 
consider  it  quite  dignified  for  him  to  be  seen  in  public 
without  it.  After  all,  as  he  pointed  out,  it  is  no  more 
irrational  than  the  affection  of  the  English  professional 
man  for  his  silk  topper,  which  for  hardness,  heaviness, 
ugliness,  and  general  inconvenience  could  hardly  be  beaten 
by  the  most  bizarre  of  Oriental  headdresses.  As  for  the 
ladies,  even  when  emancipated  from  the  purdah  limita- 
tions, they  generally  keep  to  some  adaptation  of  the  garb 
of  their  mothers.  Herein  they  show  their  sense,  for  the 
flowing  draperies  and  bright  colours  suit  them,  and  the 
European  dresses  do  not.  A  Parsi  lady  in  a  tailor-made 
gown  and  a  hat  derived  from  Bond  Street  looks  no 
better  than  a  common  little  Eurasian  nursemaid ;  whereas 
in  her  robe  of  flowered  silk,  with  the  pale  oval  of  her  face 
set  off  by  a  floating  muslin  veil  bordered  with  silver 
braid,  she  may  become  quite  attractive. 

Theoretically  there  is  very  little  to  prevent  the 
European  and  the  emancipated  part  of  the  native  societies 
from  associating  together.  In  practice  they  do  not  mingle. 
The  men  see  each  other  in  the  way  of  business,  on 
municipal  boards,  and  in  the  course  of  official  functions, 


40  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

and  native  gentlemen  come  to  Government  House  to 
attend  the  great  promiscuous  public  receptions.  But  the 
white  and  brown  communities  stand  aloof  socially.  There 
are  many  Englishmen  in  Bombay  who  have  lived  in  the 
city  for  years,  and  have  never  been  in  a  native  house  or 
seen  any  native  but  a  servant  or  a  tradesman  within  their 
own  doors,  nor  have  they  ever  exchanged  a  sentence  with 
an  Indian  lady.  Indeed,  I  fancy  that,  even  in  Bombay,  a 
man  who  was  known  habitually  to  seek  native  society 
would  be  looked  at  with  some  suspicion  by  his  friends  at 
the  clubs. 

Anglo-India  does  not  care  to  be  too  familiar  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  country.  It  confines  its  interests 
mainly  to  itself,  and  the  relations  of  its  own  constituent 
parts  to  one  another,  and  to  the  people  At  Home.  Espe- 
cially is  this  the  case  in  the  great  towns,  which  contain, 
it  must  be  remembered,  an  unduly  large  part  of  the  white 
population  of  the  peninsula.  The  civilians  in  the  rural 
districts,  and  some  of  the  officers  of  the  police  and  the 
forest  service,  make  praiseworthy  efforts  to  know  some- 
thing of  native  gentlemen  out  of  working,  and  even  sport- 
ing, hours  ;  for  you  may  play  polo  with  a  man,  or  go 
pig-sticking  with  him,  without  really  knowing  him.  It 
is  a  difficult  task,  but  occasionally  it  is  successful.  In 
the  Presidency  towns,  English  society  is  large  enough  to 
be  self-contained,  and  it  is  languid  about  cultivating  the 
local  element.  Besides,  it  is  mainly  composed  of  busi- 
ness men,  who  do  not  feel,  as  the  more  conscientious 
civilians  do,  that  it  is  their  duty  to  try  to  understand 
our  Eastern  fellow-subjects.  The  breaking  down  of  social 
barriers  is  no  affair  of  theirs. 

I  suppose  that  is  the  reason  why  a  certain  acerbity  is 
perceptible  in  the  sentiments  of  many  influential  Indians 
towards  the  English  and  English  rule.  When  you  first 
come    in    contact    with    the    educated    native,    on    the 


BOMBAY:   THE   WHITE   MAN'S  BURDEN  41 

threshold  of  the  Empire,  you  cannot  fail  to  be  struck 
by  the  fact  that  he  is  a  man  with  a  veiled  grievance. 
And  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Bombay — even  beyond 
the  rest  of  India — is  being  run  for  his  benefit,  and  that 
he  is  the  dominating  factor  in  its  industry  and  its  pro- 
fessional life.  He  seems  to  have  things  very  much  his 
own  way  ;  but  he  is  in  rather  an  irritable  splenetic  mood, 
and  is  inclined  to  patronise  radical  Congress  orators,  in- 
triguing Mahratta  Brahmans,  insubordinate  rajas,  and 
divers  others  who  are  discontented  with  the  existing 
scheme  of  things.  While  staying  in  Bombay  I  found 
myself  one  evening  dining  with  a  company  of  leading 
men  among  the  Asiatic  community  of  the  Presidency 
city.  I  was  the  only  European  present ;  the  other  guests 
were  Parsis  and  Hindus,  with  one  Mohammedan.  Need- 
less to  say  they  were  all  emancipated,  occidentalised 
persons,  otherwise  they  would  not  have  been  dining  with 
me  or  with  each  other.  One  of  them  held  high  office 
under  the  Government ;  another  had  taken  honours  at 
Cambridge ;  a  third  was  a  wealthy  merchant  and  finan- 
cier, who  generally  has  a  house  in  London  for  the  season, 
entertains  lavishly,  and  is  quite  an  important  figure  in 
metropolitan  society. 

Now,  on  the  face  of  it,  none  of  these  men  should  have 
been  suspected  of  any  special  prejudice  against  the  ruling 
race,  whose  manners  they  copied,  or  of  any  particular 
affection  for  the  congeries  of  peoples  from  whom  they 
had,  to  a  large  extent,  broken  asunder.  Yet,  when  they 
were  properly  warmed  up  by  French  cookery  and  judi- 
cious contradiction,  I  found  that  they  were  one  and  all 
suffering  under  a  sense  of  injustice  and  slight.  They 
declared,  some  with  distinct  heat,  others  in  more  guarded 
terms,  that  the  theoretical  equality  of  all  men  in  British 
India  was  a  mere  fiction.  Though  I  told  them  that 
everything  I  had  seen  in  Bombay  conveyed  a  contrary 


42  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

impression  to  my  mind,  they  insisted  that  this  was  an 
error.  The  native,  they  said,  throughout  the  country  was 
treated  as  an  inferior  and  as  a  member  of  a  servile  and 
subject  race. 

I  asked  for  illustrations,  and  they  rolled  out  a  string 
of  them.  Many  were  concerned  with  the  railways,  where, 
of  course,  people  of  all  races  come  into  contact.  At  some 
stations,  I  was  assured,  the  first-class  waiting-room  is 
reserved  for  Europeans  and  the  second-class  for  natives. 
'  One  of  the  white  foremen  at  my  factory/  said  a  great 
Parsi  mill-owner,  '  can  go  into  the  superior  apartment, 
while  I,  his  employer,  must  slink  into  the  other  enclosure, 
in  company  with  coolies  and  day-labourers. '  An  English 
and  a  Mohammedan  Judge  of  the  High  Court  were  travel- 
ling together;  when  they  alighted  at  the  station,  both 
strolled  into  the  same  waiting-room.  Presently  an  official 
of  the  company  came  up  and  ordered  one  of  the  eminent 
lawyers  to  leave  on  the  plea  that  the  place  was  not 
intended  for  natives. 

In  several  of  the  stories  the  British  subaltern,  with 
his  comprehensive  contempt  for  all  *  niggers,'  played  a 
shining  part.  There  is  one  pleasing  tale  which  is  a 
'chestnut'  in  India,  so  often  has  it  been  told,  but  may 
perhaps  be  new  to  some  English  readers.  A  young 
cavalry  officer  entering  a  first-class  carriage,  for  a  long 
night  journey  on  an  express  train,  found  that  he  had  for 
fellow-traveller  a  middle-aged  stout  Hindu,  who  was 
chewing  betel-nut.  The  trooper  requested  that  this  ob- 
jectionable practice  should  be  discontinued.  The  Asiatic 
refused ;  whereupon  the  youngster  compelled  his  com- 
panion, under  menaces,  to  enter  the  adjoining  lavatory 
compartment,  locked  him  in,  and  threatened  him  with 
dire  personal  injury  if  he  made  the  smallest  sound  till  he 
was  released.  The  native,  a  man  of  peace,  complied,  and 
passed  a  night  of  quaking  stillness  in  his  darksome  prison. 


BOMBAY:   THE   WHITE  MAN'S  BURDEN  43 

In  the  morning  the  train  drew  up  at  a  station,  and  uni- 
formed Government  House  functionaries  and  gold-tur- 
baned  attendants  came  to  the  carriage  in  search  of  the 
important  chief  they  had  been  sent  to  receive ;  but, 
though  his  Highness's  slippers  and  his  Highness's  um- 
brella were  in  evidence,  his  Highness  himself  was  nowhere 
to  be  seen.  Explanations  were  sought  from  the  subaltern, 
and  with  some  difficulty  he  grasped  the  situation.  '  I 
expect,'  he  said  cheerfully,  'the  chap  you  want  is  the 
black  Johnny  I  locked  up  in  the  bath-room  last  night ' ; 
so  the  doors  were  unclasped,  and  the  limp  potentate 
extracted. 

Several  other  histories  were  narrated,  tending  to  show 
that  the  young  British  officer  is  often  wanting  in  tact  and 
consideration  in  his  dealings  with  natives ;  nor  are  his 
superiors,  or  even  the  high  civilian  officials,  always  im- 
peccable. Kajas  and  other  great  personages,  if  seldom 
handled  so  disrespectfully  as  in  the  above-mentioned  ex- 
ample, are  sometimes  treated  with  scant  courtesy  and  in 
off-hand  fashion,  even  on  occasions  of  public  ceremony. 
The  grievance  is  social  rather  than  legal  or  political,  and  it 
is  in  this  form  that  it  is  felt  by  some  of  those,  whether  they 
be  feudal  landowners  of  progressive  views  or  ambitious 
plutocrats,  who  admire  English  methods  but  are  irritated 
by  English  exclusiveness.  With  all  their  cleverness,  and 
all  their  wealth  and  worldly  success,  they  cannot  get 
the  English  to  put  them  exactly  on  the  same  level  as 
themselves  socially.  The  Parsi  millionaire  may  ask  half 
London  to  his  entertainments  when  he  is  living  in 
Piccadilly  or  Queen's  Gate ;  but  he  would  be  requested  to 
withdraw  at  once  if  he  ventured  to  put  a  foot  inside  the 
grounds  of  the  Bombay  Yacht  Club  or  the  Byculla. 
Eanjitsinhji  himself,  the  hero  of  English  cricketing  school- 
boys, could  not  be  asked  in  to  play  a  game  of  tennis  at 
the  Ladies'  Gymkhana  Club. 


44  A  VISION   OF   INDIA 

These  seem  all  very  small  matters ;  I  mention  them 
because,  apparently,  they  do  not  appear  quite  so  in- 
significant to  some  of  the  natives  whom  we  have  admitted 
to  equality  with  ourselves  in  other  respects.  And  what 
did  not  seem  to  me  a  small  matter,  by  any  means,  was 
that  all  these  Anglicised  de-orientalised  natives  had  a 
certain  common  national  feeling  as  against  the  alien  ruler. 
Differing  as  they  do,  among  themselves,  in  origin,  race, 
and  language — two  of  the  company,  both  Bombay-side 
men,  could  find  no  common  medium  of  communication 
but  English — they  yet  manifested  a  consciousness  that, 
vis-a-vis  the  British,  they  were  all  '  Indians.'  It  was  a 
sentiment  the  existence  of  which  most  Anglo-Indians 
would  emphatically  deny,  but  I  have  seen  other  evidence 
that  it  prevails,  even  in  Europeanised  Bombay,  which 
is  perhaps  the  last  place  where  one  would  expect  to 
find  it. 

In  the  business  world  of  Bombay  the  Parsis  hold  a 
position  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers.  Wherever 
in  the  world  you  find  a  small  community,  distinctive  in 
race  or  religion,  or  both,  that  community  will  generally 
be  successful,  especially  in  finance  and  trade.  Witness 
the  Jews,  the  Armenians,  the  Basques,  the  Marwaris,  the 
Levantine  Greeks,  the  Quakers.  But  of  these  organisms 
the  Parsis  are  in  some  ways  the  most  remarkable,  for 
they  are  by  far  the  smallest  and  certainly,  for  their 
numbers,  the  most  flourishing  of  any. 

They  are  a  mere  handful,  though  it  is  hard  for  the 
European,  in  his  novitiate  in  India,  to  believe  it.  There 
are  only  some  45,000  of  them,  men,  women,  and  children, 
in  Bombay,  and  well  under  a  hundred  thousand  in  the 
whole  world,  including  Piccadilly.  The  fact  seems  in- 
credible ;  for  at  the  first  aspect  Bombay  gives  the  impres- 
sion of  a  city  of  Parsis.  They  are  visible,  they  and  their 
work,  everywhere.     The  wealth  of  the  place  is  largely 


BOMBAY:   THE   WHITE   MAN'S  BURDEN  45 

in  their  hands,  so  is  the  manufacturing  industry  and  the 
real  property.  Parsi  names  are  painted  on  the  gate- 
posts of  many  of  those  desirable  suburban  residences 
from  which  European  tenants  have  been  banished.  If 
the  eye  falls  on  a  handsome  public  building,  it  is 
quite  likely  to  be  a  Parsi  hospital,  or  a  Parsi  con- 
valescent home,  or  the  college  founded  by  one  wealthy 
fire-worshipper,  or  the  monument  presented  to  the 
city  by  another.  Parsis  hold  most  of  the  shares  in 
the  largest  of  the  cotton-mills,  whose  tall  chimneys 
are  blackening  the  sunlit  air  all  over  the  northern 
quarter  of  the  island ;  the  big  new  hotel,  whose  impos- 
ing sea-front  greets  the  voyager  with  his  first  view  of 
Bombay,  belongs  to  a  family  of  Parsi  financiers  whose 
names  are  known  in  the  West  as  well  as  the  East. 

In  the  morning,  streams  of  Parsis,  in  black  alpaca 
coats  and  high  shiny  caps,  are  flowing  down  to  their 
offices,  to  go  ebbing  back  at  eventide.  There  are  apparently 
no  Parsi  coolies,  or  labourers  ;  but  the  clerks,  the  shop 
assistants,  the  native  officials,  the  doctors,  lawyers,  brokers, 
engineers,  accountants,  are  largely  drawn  from  this  com- 
munity. They  are  very  prominent  in  the  Bombay 
Corporation,  and  generally  '  boss '  municipal  affairs,  so 
far  as  these  can  be  bossed  under  the  Indian  system.  And 
on  every  public  festivity,  a  reception  of  the  Viceroy  or 
a  Royal  Prince,  the  Parsi  ladies  and  gentlemen  are  much 
in  evidence.  There  is  no  purdah  for  Parsi  women,  who 
drive  and  walk  about  as  they  please,  and  sometimes  even 
ride  bicycles ;  but  they  keep  to  their  picturesque  national 
dress,  and  particularly  to  the  gauzy  veil,  because  no 
woman,  in  this  part  of  India,  is  considered  quite  respect- 
able without  some  sort  of  covering  for  her  head. 

The  Parsis,  we  are  often  reminded,  are  foreigners,  like 
ourselves,  in  India.  As  it  is  some  twelve  centuries  since 
they  left  their  home,  they  may  be  said  to  have  taken  root. 


46  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

They  fled  from  Persia  to  escape  Mohammedan  persecution, 
and  found  a  refuge  under  the  Hindu  kings  of  Guzerat, 
who  tolerated  them,  within  limits.  They  were  allowed  to 
practise  their  Zoroastrian  worship  of  the  elements,  but 
they  were  expected  to  conform  to  Brahmanist  feeling,  and 
compelled  to  adopt  the  high  black  cap,  supposed  to  be 
shaped  like  a  cow's  hoof,  as  a  sign  of  subjection  and  con- 
formity. But  they  brought  their  consecrated  fire  from 
Persia,  and  it  burns  to  this  day  in  little,  whitewashed, 
empty  temples,  within  sound  of  the  tramway  gongs  of 
Bombay.  Driven  upon  themselves,  they  became,  as  these 
proscribed  and  powerless  minor  sects  often  do,  hard- 
working craftsmen  and  industrious  traders.  For  many 
generations  they  were  the  minor  shopkeepers  and  artisans 
of  Bombay,  persevering  but  uninfluential. 

Under  the  settled  peace  of  British  rule  they  have 
flourished  wonderfully  and  waxed  mighty.  Free  from 
Mahratta  tyranny  and  Hindu  suspicion,  they  have  been 
able  to  give  full  scope  to  their  mercantile  and  financial 
talents.  They  were  no  longer  afraid  to  make  money,  and 
were  able  to  keep  it.  Some  of  them  left  off  being  small 
tradesmen,  and  developed  into  merchants,  manufacturers, 
mill-owners,  millionaires.  Having  no  chain  of  caste  re- 
strictions like  the  Hindus,  and  no  swathing  of  burden- 
some religious  prejudices  like  the  Mohammedans,  they 
got  into  contact  with  the  white  mercantile  community, 
and  assimilated  some— not  all — of  our  manners  and  cus- 
toms with  avidity.  They  learnt  the  English  language, 
read  English  books,  and  sometimes  wrote  them,  founded 
schools  for  their  children  on  English  lines,  and  joined 
with  Englishmen  in  works  of  charity  and  benevolence. 
Also  they  learnt  English  games.  As  everybody  knows, 
they  play  cricket.  They  play  it  so  well  that  for  the  last 
year  or  two  matches  between  them  and  British  teams  are 
discouraged :    the  native  spectators  having   developed  a 


BOMBAY:   THE    WHITE   MAN'S   BURDEN  47 

taste  for  '  barracking '  the  beaten  eleven  (which  is  gene- 
rally the  white  one),  and  exulting  riotously  and  offensively 
over  the  victory  of  the  men  of  Asia. 

Many  of  the  Parsis  also  provided  themselves  with 
English  names,  or  distant  imitations  of  them.  The  Parsi 
nomenclature  is  curious.  Every  man  has  his  first  name, 
which  is  what  we  call  a  Christian  name,  and  his  family 
patronymic,  and  a  third  appellation  of  a  descriptive 
character.  It  is  rather  like  the  mediaeval  English  system 
under  which  a  person  was  William  the  son  of  Eobert 
the  Smith,  or  something  of  the  kind.  The  Parsis 
of  the  past  generation  varied  their  descriptive  labels 
according  to  taste.  Not  being  above  their  business,  they 
took  titles  drawn  from  their  avocations  or  otherwise  con- 
nected with  their  station  in  life.  Thus,  if  a  young  Parsi 
were,  say,  a  waiter  who  poured  wine  at  a  club,  he  would 
probably  call  himself  Mr.  Bottleman,  which  in  the  ver- 
nacular would  be  Bottlywalla ;  and  this,  slightly  disguised 
as  Batlivala,  is,  in  fact,  now  the  name  of  a  Bombay  family 
honourably  distinguished  in  professional  life. 

So  we  have  bootwalla,  coatwalla,  and  sackcloth- 
walla,  which  is  now  Saklatvala.  Such  a  name  as  '  Mr. 
Eeady-money '  sounds  as  if  it  came  out  of  a  novel  or  a 
comic  opera,  but  it  belongs  to  highly  important  people,  and 
is  known  all  over  Western  India.  After  all,  it  is  not  very 
different  from  Mr.  Butler  or  Mr.  Baker  or  Mr.  Cartwright. 
Sometimes  the  aspiring  Parsi  went  farther  afield, 
and  simply  appropriated  English  names,  calling  himself 
Mr.  Spencer  or  Mr.  Kipon.  Just  lately  '  Curzon  &  Co.' 
has  been  in  favour.  In  due  course  it  may  be  Minto 
Brothers.  But  it  is  suspected  that  some  of  these  names 
are  simply  adopted  for  business  purposes,  according  to  a 
custom  not  unknown  elsewhere,  and  are  not  used  in  the 
domestic  circle. 

Hindus,   as   well   as   Parsis,  are  rather   loose   about 


48  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

names.  There  is  a  story  that  one  Madras  shopkeeper 
brought  an  action  against  another  to  restrain  him  from 
using  his  trade  name,  which  was  English  and  high- 
sounding.  The  Judge  of  the  High  Court,  whom  we  may 
call  Sir  William  Eamsbury,  in  giving  judgment  against 
the  defendant,  explained  that  he  was  quite  at  liberty  to 
adopt  any  name  but  that  pre-occupied  by  the  plaintiff. 
'  May  I  use  any  other  name  I  like  ?  '  said  the  defeated  liti- 
gant. '  Certainly/  said  Mr.  Justice  Eamsbury.  The 
next  morning  his  Honour  received  a  card  announcing 
that  *  Eamsbury  and  Company '  were  prepared  to  supply 
him  for  cash  on  the  most  reasonable  terms. 

The  Parsis  are  an  interesting  and  rather  attractive 
body  of  people.  Their  cleverness  is  undeniable,  and  it 
shows  itself  in  other  ways  besides  that  of  commerce. 
There  are  eminent  surgeons  in  the  community,  able 
lawyers,  good  engineers,  botanists,  and  physiologists.  In 
business  itself  they  have  not  only  the  quickness  and  alert 
adaptability  of  the  Oriental  trader,  but  also  a  boldness  of 
conception  and  a  courage  in  undertaking  great  and  even 
hazardous  enterprises  which  we  are  rather  inclined  to 
regard  as  Western  traits.  There  is  at  the  present  moment 
a  great  scheme  for  developing  the  mineral  resources  of 
the  Bombay  Presidency  and  generating  electricity  by 
water-power,  initiated  by  a  Parsi  group,  which  is  quite 
Transatlantic  in  its  comprehensive  audacity. 

They  have  a  taste  for  open-air  amusements.  Their 
family  life  is,  as  a  rule,  excellent ;  one  can  go  for  after- 
noon tea  to  a  Parsi  lady's  drawing-room  and  find  good 
conversation  and  pleasant  feminine  companionship,  though 
the  few  highly  '  advanced '  Parsi  ladies  who  travel  abroad 
must  not  be  taken  as  quite  average  specimens  of  their  sex 
in  the  community.  The  majority  retain  sufficient  vestiges 
of  Orientalism  to  believe  that  a  certain  seclusion  and 
reserved  domesticity  are  required  of  a  woman,  and  that 


BOMBAY:   THE   WHITE   MAN'S  BURDEN  49 

she  should  still  occupy  herself  mainly  in  her  household 
and  family  affairs.  Female  emancipation  among  the 
Parsis  has  not  gone  quite  so  far  as  we  are  apt  to 
imagine. 

'  At  Home  '  the  Parsis  get  on  very  well.  Those  who 
come  abroad  have  plenty  of  money  to  spend,  and  they 
are  hospitable,  courteous,  kindly,  and  quite  modern  in 
their  views  and  ways.  But  in  his  own  real  home  the 
Parsi  is  not  always  quite  so  happy.  He  is  to  some  extent 
adrift  in  an  uncertain  position  between  the  Asiatic  and 
the  European,  and  he  represents,  in  its  acutest  form,  that 
social  grievance  to  which  reference  has  already  been 
made.  He  is  so  English  in  his  customs,  he  talks  English 
so  well,  and  he  has  got  rid  of  so  much  of  his  superfluous 
Oriental  baggage,  that  he  has  almost  got  into  the  habit 
of  thinking  himself  a  member  of  the  ruling  race.  Yet 
he  is  painfully  conscious  that  to  nine  Englishmen  out  of 
ten  he  is  only  a  'native,'  lumped  up  unceremoniously 
with  all  the  conglomerate  of  civilised,  semi-civilised,  and 
savage  humanity  denoted  by  that  comprehensive  term. 

From  these  same  natives  themselves  he  receives  only 
that  qualified  amount  of  deference  which  attaches  rather 
to  riches  than  to  race.  An  English  friend  tells  me  that 
a  Parsi  gentleman  was  driving  him  in  his  phaeton 
through  the  streets  of  Bombay.  His  horses  were  as 
smart  a  pair  as  you  could  want  to  see  in  the  Kow,  he 
handled  whip  and  reins  neatly,  he  was  a  handsome  man, 
well  dressed  and  well  set-up.  The  Englishman  noticed 
that  policemen,  and  other  officials,  saluted  them  with 
considerable  precision,  and  he  made  some  remark  on  the 
respectfulness  of  their  bearing.  'Yes,'  said  his  friend 
rather  bitterly,  '  but  that  is  because  you  are  sitting  beside 
me,  and  they  see  you  are  one  of  the  Sahibs.  If  I  were 
alone,  not  one  of  these  men  would  take  the  slightest 
notice  of  me.     And  they  would  make  me  pull  up  and 

E 


50  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

keep  my  horses  standing  if  a  white  shop-assistant  chose 
to  dawdle  across  the  street.'  For  my  own  part,  I  must 
confess  that  I  did  not  observe  any  sign  in  Bombay  of  that 
exaggerated  deference  towards  the  members  of  the  ruling 
race  which  this  remark  suggested. 

The  future  of  the  Parsis  is  somewhat  doubtful.     Some 
people  who  know  them  tell  me  that  there  are  signs  of 
degeneration  among  them.     The  young  Parsis,  who  go 
to  the  high   schools,  or  to   Oxford   or   Cambridge,  and 
acquire  a  taste  for  culture,  have  lost  the  grip  and  go  of 
their  hard-headed  pertinacious  progenitors,  who  pushed 
themselves,  by  sheer  force  of  character,  from  the  trades- 
man's  counter   and   the   small   money-lender's   office  to 
become  merchant  princes  and  captains  of  industry.    They 
are  less  strenuous,  more  frivolous,  somewhat  ashamed  of 
the  *  shop ; '  they  are  losing  their  identity ;  and  they  are 
relaxing  their  hold  on  the  religion  of  their  fathers,  with 
its  simple  ethical  code,  without  finding  a  substitute  for  it. 
They  are  becoming  denationalised,  and  some  of  them  them- 
selves have  told  me  that  they  fear  it  is  their  destiny  to  be 
absorbed  into  the  general  body  of  Europeans  in  India. 
Here  I  think  they  are  mistaken.     There  is  no  sign  that 
the  English  will  assimilate  them.     They  may  cease  to  be 
Parsis  ;  but  if  they  merge  at  all  it  will  be  in  that  still 
small  and  hesitating  body  of  Asiatics  who  are  trying  in  a 
tentative  way  to  regard  themselves  as  *  Indians.' 


51 


CHAPTEE    IV 
AT  THE   MILLS 

Manufactures,  like  most  other  things  in  India,  are  very 
new  and  very  old ;  and  it  is  often  easy  to  see  the  new  and 
the  old  side  by  side.  You  can  observe  the  juxtaposition, 
for  instance,  in  Cawnpore,  a  town  which  seems  to  be 
rapidly  ascending  towards  the  second  place  among  the 
manufacturing  cities  of  India.  The  visitor  to  Cawnpore 
usually  limits  his  attention  to  the  Memorial  Church  and 
the  Massacre  Ghat,  and  that  garden  of  intolerably  tragic 
memories  where  the  sculptured  Angel  of  Peace  droops 
her  white  wings  above  the  pit  into  which  '  a  great  com- 
pany of  Christian  people,  chiefly  women  and  children,' l 
were  cast,  '  the  dying  with  the  dead,'  after  being  hacked 
to  pieces  by  the  butchers  of  the  Nana  Sahib.  But  when 
he  has  seen  these  reminiscences  of  a  sombre  past,  he 
might  walk  over  to  the  cotton-mills,  the  woollen-mills, 
or  the  great  leather-factories,  where  modern  industrialism 
is  humming  with  eager  vitality.  The  Cawnpore  woollen- 
mills  are  crowded  with  splendid  machinery,  so  nearly 
automatic  that  the  chumar,  the  low-caste  coolie  who 
attends  it,  has  little  more  to  do  than  to  brush  away  the 

1  The  words  are  from  the  inscription  round  the  screen  wall  above  the 
Well  at  Cawnpore.  The  inscription,  in  its  simplicity,  is  more  in  touch 
with  the  sentiment  evoked  by  this  sorrowful  place  than  the  feebly  ornate 
screen  and  the  mid-Victorian  angel.  One  feels  that  if  Baron  Marochetti 
had  been  Michelangelo  he  could  hardly  have  put  an  adequate  intensity  of 
expression  into  the  face  and  form.  A  plain  cross  or  column  of  marble  to 
mark  the  spot  where  the  Nana's  victims  lie,  in  the  midst  of  the  beautiful 
quiet  garden,  would  surely  have  been  better. 

e  2 


52  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

dust  and  feed  the  thirsty  faucets  with  oil.  It  is  almost  as 
if  the  man  and  the  machine  had  changed  places:  the 
former  has  only  to  exert  a  limited  amount  of  mechanical 
force ;  the  moving  thing  of  metal  seems  endowed  with 
intelligence  and  volition.  There  is  a  knitting-machine 
which  needs  only  to  be  fed  with  a  reel  of  worsted-thread 
to  turn  out  a  whole  string  of  stockings,  beginning  a  new 
one  as  soon  as  it  has  finished  the  last.  With  deft  steel 
fingers  it  picks  up  the  threads  and  works  away  swiftly 
and  unerringly  at  the  leg  and  ankle,  never  dropping  or 
missing  a  stitch,  and  putting  in  the  right  number  with 
faultless  precision.  Then  it  comes  to  the  heel  and  stops 
a  moment ;  it  reflects  that  in  a  well-made  stocking  the 
heel  should  be  of  double  thickness.  So  it  takes  up  two 
threads  instead  of  one,  works  away  a  little  slower  till 
the  heel  is  done,  stops  again,  goes  back  to  the  single  ply, 
and  so  finishes  the  foot.  And  all  this  absolutely  without 
a  touch  from  the  attendant,  without  the  handling  of  a 
tap  or  a  lever.  Unless  something  goes  wrong,  he  is 
merely  required  to  snip  off  the  stockings  from  the  string 
as  they  are  wound  out  in  front  of  him.  Here  is  the  New 
World  indeed.  But  the  Old  can  also  be  seen  in  the  squalid 
bazaars  of  Cawnpore,  where  men  and  women  sit  in  their 
reeking  little  hutches,  weaving,  fulling,  and  dyeing  the 
cloth  with  such  primitive  processes  and  implements  as 
they  used  before  there  were  English  in  India  or  steam- 
engines  in  England. 

In  Bombay  one  can  pass  from  the  great  steam- 
power  cotton-mills  in  the  suburbs  to  the  Street  of  the 
Weavers,  which  is  in  a  crowded  insalubrious  por- 
tion of  the  native  city,  and  is  inhabited  chiefly  by 
Mohammedans  of  a  sturdy,  rather  truculent,  type,  who 
have  been  hand-loom  weavers  for  generations.  There 
is  no  caste  system  among  the  Mussulmans  ;  but  in  the 
East  a  man  likes  to  follow  the  calling  practised  by  his 


>  }>  >       >  >  > 
COOLIES    IN    BOMBAY. 


AT  THE  MILLS  53 

father  before  him.  These  hand-loom  weavers  work  in 
their  own  homes  on  their  own  account,  or  in  small  work- 
shops, where  a  dozen  or  so  of  them  will  be  collected. 
They  sell  the  woven  cloth  through  the  owner  or  lessee 
of  the  place,  who  takes  a  small  commission  on  the  pro- 
ceeds. The  plant  required  is  not  costly.  The  hand- 
loom  consists  of  a  few  sticks  and  strings,  and  the  whole 
apparatus,  I  was  assured,  could  be  bought  new  for 
less  than  a  couple  of  rupees — say  half  a  crown.  Pro- 
vided with  this  trumpery  machine  and  a  few  hanks  of 
cotton  or  silk  thread,  the  Indian  weaver  can  get  to  work. 
He  needs  nothing  more — nothing  but  his  own  bony 
claw-like  fingers  and  his  own  capacity  for  patient 
monotonous  endurance. 

The  weaver  is  a  little  man  :  his  occupation  is  not 
favourable  to  long  limbs  and  big  muscles.  He  sits  on 
the  floor  of  dried  cow-dung,  with  his  legs  huddled  into 
a  hole  under  him  ;  his  flimsy  framework  hangs  from  the 
ceiling  above,  and  he  pulls  the  bobbin  with  its  spool  of 
thread  backward  and  forward  across  his  knees.  He  does 
this  all  day,  never  varying  the  slow  even  pace  at  which 
he  goes,  following  his  rough  pattern  without  a  mistake, 
seldom  stopping  to  rest  or  talk.  If  you  peer  into  his 
dark  little  cell  in  the  early  morning,  you  find  him  there, 
silent  and  intent,  with  his  brown  hands  skimming  across 
his  brown  knees ;  in  the  noontide  heat  he  goes  on ;  he 
is  still  at  his  toil  when  evening  falls.  From  sunrise  to 
sundown  are  the  traditional  hours  of  labour  for  the  Indian 
weaver — from  the  beginning  of  the  natural  day  to  the 
time  when  the  light  is  veiled.  Now  and  again  the  weaver 
rises  and  goes  out  to  get  a  drink  of  water.  He  eats  little 
during  his  working  hours ;  in  the  Eamazan,  the  month  of 
fasting,  being  a  Mohammedan,  he  does  not  eat  at  all,  taking 
his  food  before  the  rising  and  after  the  setting  of  the  sun ; 
but  he  stops  to  say  his  prayers  at  noon  and  in  the  after- 


54  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

noon,  and,  when  night  comes,  he  gets  out  his  square  of 
threadbare  rug,  turns  his  face  vaguely  to  the  West, 
where  the  Holy  City  lies,  and  gives  thanks  to  Allah  for 
the  mercies  of  the  day.  He  pays,  perhaps,  three  rupees 
a  month  for  his  lodging,  and,  if  he  is  lucky  and  times  are 
good,  may  earn  seven  rupees,  so  that  he  has  four  over — 
say  eighteenpence  a  week  for  food  and  clothing  and  the 
maintenance  of  his  wife,  or  wives,  and  his  children.  So 
he  lives  and  labours  and  starves  and  endures,  as  his 
fathers  have  done  before  him  through  the  dim  centuries. 

When  you  have  considered  this  image  of  his  Maker 
sufficiently,  go  by  train  or  carriage  to  the  northern 
suburbs,  where  the  tall  chimneys  of  the  mill  are  pouring 
black  smoke  into  the  sunlight,  and  fouling  the  low-lying 
marshy  soil  of  the  island  with  their  refuse.  There  are 
good  mills  and  bad  mills  in  Bombay,  as  in  Calcutta  and 
Cawnpore  and  the  other  cities  whose  industry  is  fast 
giving  India  a  place  among  the  great  cotton-manu- 
facturing countries  of  the  world.  The  first  mill  I  visited 
belonged  to  one  of  the  largest  and  most  successful  of  the 
native  joint-stock  companies,  and  its  shares  stand  at  a 
premium  of  1,500  per  cent.,  or  more.  It  was  a  fine  and, 
apparently,  a  very  well-managed  concern.  And  here, 
again,  it  seemed  strange,  with  the  recollection  of  the 
hand-loom  weaver  in  mind,  to  look  into  the  vast  sheds 
of  glass  and  iron,  full  of  modern  machinery,  with  row 
after  row  of  workmen  and  workwomen  at  the  spindles. 
So  far  as  cleanliness  and  good  order  were  concerned,  it 
was  equal  to  most  mills  or  factories  I  have  seen,  even 
in  Germany.  There  was  no  reek  or  smell  of  tainted 
air,  except,  as  you  went  through  the  lines,  the  somewhat 
acrid  odour  of  perspiring  humanity.  Sweeper-women 
were  prowling  about  everywhere,  brushing  away  the  dust 
and  refuse  and  cotton-waste,  and  keeping  the  floors  tidy. 
The  sanitary  accommodation,  as  things  go  in  the  East* 


AT  THE  MILLS  55 

was  good  enough,  and  there  were  pipes  and  taps  and  large 
cement  cisterns  at  which  the  workpeople  could  perform 
their  frequent  ablutions.  The  Indian,  at  his  dirtiest,  is 
a  washing  animal.  He  can  no  more  live  without  sluicing 
himself  all  over  with  water  (not  necessarily  clean  water) 
than  his  own  buffaloes. 

This,  as  I  say,  was  one  of  the  better  mills  :  in  fact,  it 
is,  I  believe,  pretty  nearly  the  best  in  the  district.  I  saw 
others  which  impressed  me  less  favourably,  where  the 
sheds  were  low  and  dark,  the  workpeople  crowded  together, 
and  the  arrangements  for  ventilation  and  sanitation 
capable  of  considerable  improvement.  However,  there 
seems  on  the  whole  no  great  reason  to  criticise  the 
general  structural  condition  of  the  mills,  which  is  kept 
up  to  a  fair  standard,  especially  where  the  buildings  are 
modern.  What  the  Indian  workman  complains  of  are 
the  long  hours  of  labour  exacted.  That  is  to  say,  he 
might  complain.  But  he  does  not ;  he  complains  of 
nothing.  Sufferance  through  long  ages  has  been  the 
badge  of  his  kin.  Some  of  the  mill-hands  belong  to  the 
Mahars,  an  outcast  tribe,  probably  of  aboriginal  descent, 
who  are  still  not  far  removed  from  savages.  Outside 
one  great  mill  I  visited  was  a  village  of  these  people. 
Their  houses  were  the  merest  shanties  of  earth  and 
thatch,  as  poor  as  Kaffir  kraals,  or  the  cabins  in  which 
men — and  voters — live  on  the  coast  of  Connemara  and 
Donegal. 

But  most  of  the  mill-workers  are  immigrants  from  the 
Concan  and  other  rural  districts  of  the  Western  Presi- 
dency. A  good  proportion  were  women,  for  the  most 
part  of  a  low  type,  short,  stunted,  and  ill-favoured,  though 
here  and  there  one  saw  a  Hindu  woman  of  a  higher  caste, 
with  sari  and  chudder,  and  silver  ornaments.  The  women 
are  sometimes  the  wives  of  the  male  operatives,  sometimes 
they  are  not.     '  That  man,'  said  the  manager,  pointing  to 


56  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

a  burly  Hindu,  *  has  two  wives  at  work  in  the  mill,  and 
three  children.'  The  family  earnings  must  have  rendered 
this  owner  of  livestock  quite  prosperous.  Other  women 
were  widows,  and  a  Hindu  widow  has  sometimes  no 
resource  but  to  form  an  illicit  connection  with  a  man, 
who  may,  perhaps,  chivalrously  send  her  to  work  in  the 
mill  while  he  takes  her  wages.  He  may,  it  is  true,  invest 
part  of  the  proceeds  in  a  ring  for  her  nose,  and  bangles 
for  her  legs  and  arms,  not  from  generosity  or  gallantry, 
but  because  this  is  the  local  substitute  for  a  bank-balance, 
and  more  convenient  than  digging  a  hole  in  the  ground 
and  putting  the  rupees  there.  And  there  were  plenty  of 
children,  some  of  them  well-grown  girls  and  boys,  others 
tiny  scraps  of  skin  and  bone,  who  looked  (I  do  not  say 
that  they  were)  even  less  than  the  mature  age  of  nine, 
at  which  it  is  lawful  in  India  for  employment  as  a  half- 
timer  to  begin. 

There  has  been  an  agitation  in  Bombay  for  a  re- 
duction of  the  hours  both  for  child  labour  andior  adult 
labour  in  the  cotton-mills.  The  echoes  have  reached 
Lancashire,  and  fall  on  willing  ears ;  for  Lancashire  has 
been  hard  hit  by  Bombay  and  Delhi  and  Calcutta, 
and  will  be  hit  harder  still.  A  country  which  has  the 
cotton  on  its  own  fields,  and  in  which  grown  men  will 
work  all  day  and  a  good  part  of  the  night  for  a  few  pence, 
must  be  a  formidable  competitor.  Bombay,  after  rather 
a  long  spell  of  bad  times,  caused  in  part  by  the  plague, 
has  been  advancing  very  rapidly  of  late,  and  even  claims 
that  she  is  now  '  the  second  city  of  the  Empire  '  in  point 
of  population.  The  Bombay  merchants  have  been 
shipping  full  cargoes,  not  only  of  cotton-yarn,  but  of 
cofcton-cloth,  to  the  Far  East.  The  mills  have  been 
running  at  fall  pressure,  and  there  are  public-spirited 
persons  in  Bombay,  with  no  arriere-pensee  such  as  the 
citizens  of  Oldham  and  Manchester   may  possibly   feel, 


AT  THE  MILLS  57 

who  are  pressing  for  a  more  merciful  treatment  of  the 
workmen  by  their  employers. 

The  leading  Bombay  journal,  the  Times  of  India, 
has  gone  closely  into  the  subject,  and  it  has  published 
some  distressing  revelations.  It  insists  that  the  laws  as 
to  juvenile  labour  are  systematically  evaded.  Under  these 
laws,  passed  in  consequence  of  an  agitation  in  England, 
no  child  may  be  employed  under  the  age  of  nine,  and 
from  nine  to  fourteen  only  for  six  hours  a  day,  or  for 
more  than  three  hours  and  a-half  without  an  interval. 
It  is  alleged  that  these  provisions  are  disregarded.  When 
the  European  inspector  goes  his  rounds,  low  whistles  are 
heard  in  the  shops,  and  the  children  are  driven  helter- 
skelter  down  the  steps,  or  concealed  under  sacks  and 
behind  doors,  in  order  that  they  may  not  be  seen  and 
questioned.  •  On  entering  a  mill  in  the  afternoon  or  after 
sunset  a  perfect  chorus  of  whistles  went  up,  and  it 
was  invariably  followed  by  a  stampede  of  half-naked 
children.  The  jobbers  (native  overseers)  hardly  attempted 
to  disguise  what  they  were  doing.  Eepeatedly  I  saw 
them  driving  the  children  before  them  with  cuffs  and 
blows.  On  several  occasions  we  chased  the  children 
among  the  frames,  caught  one  or  two,  and  questioned 
them.  More  than  once  they  gave  evasive  answers,  but 
at  other  times  told  us  the  number  of  hours  they  had 
worked.  The  law  was  being  systematically  evaded,  with 
the  manifest  connivance  of  the  jobbers.' 

It  is  also  asserted  that  large  numbers  of  the  mill- 
children  are  below  the  statutory  age.  This  is  an  illegality 
which  it  is  hard  for  the  inspectors  to  detect.  An  Indian 
child  of  nine  looks  very  like  an  Indian  child  of  eleven  to 
the  European  eye;  and  the  officials  get  small  help  from 
the  parents,  who  will  sometimes,  it  is  said,  compel  their 
children  to  work  a  legal  day's  shift  at  one  mill  and  then 
a  shift  at  another.     This  is  not  so  much  from  cruelty  as 


58  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

from  ignorance  and  carelessness  and  the  poverty  that 
makes  the  labourer  hungry  after  every  pice. 

Inspection,  whether  of  factories  or  dwelling-houses, 
is  in  any  case  difficult  to  perform  with  searching  ade- 
quacy. The  native  subordinate  cannot  invariably  be 
trusted ;  the  European  officer,  active  and  zealous  as  he 
may  be,  does  not  always  penetrate  the  devices  employed 
to  baffle  him.  I  was  told  a  grimly  illustrative  story  while 
I  was  going  round  the  slum  tenements  in  Bombay.  In 
the  first  two  years  of  plague  there  was  the  greatest  pos- 
sible difficulty  in  enforcing  measures  of  disinfection  in  a 
plague-stricken  dwelling.  The  authorities  were  supposed 
to  be  notified  wherever  a  death  occurred,  in  order  that  the 
other  tenants  should  be  isolated  and  clothes  removed. 

In  India,  if  the  cause  of  death  is  not  ascertained  at 
once,  it  will  be  too  late  to  do  anything,  for  in  an  hour  or 
two  the  body  will  be  at  the  burning  ghat.  A  medical 
inspector,  hearing  that  two  deaths  had  occurred  in  a  large 
tenement  building,  hurried  to  the  place  and  went  into  the 
suspected  room.  He  saw  nothing  more  remarkable  than 
four  men  sitting  on  the  ground  playing  cards,  two  of 
them  propped  against  the  wall  in  the  stiff  immovable 
attitude  these  people  often  adopt.  Otherwise  the  room 
was  empty ;  no  bed  or  hangings ;  no  cavity  in  which  a 
human  body  could  be  concealed.  The  inspector  turned 
away ;  but  as  he  walked  out  of  the  doorway  his  native 
sepoy  whispered  to  him,  ■  Better  go  back  to  that  room, 
Sahib.'  He  did  so,  and  found  the  two  card-players 
at  the  wall  still  sitting  in  the  same  immovable  attitude ; 
but  one,  whom  the  sepoy  touched  with  his  foot,  rolled 
over  on  the  floor  in  a  limp  bundle.  The  men  were  both 
dead  :  dead  of  the  plague.  A  similar  dramatic  incident 
has  been  put  on  the  stage,  and  has  been  condemned,  I 
believe,  as  improbable.  The  critics  who  said  that  had, 
perhaps,  not  been  in  the  East,  and  did  not  know  how 


AT  THE  MILLS  59 

easily  life  and  death  can  be  counterfeited  and  played  with 
by  Orientals. 

To  return  to  the  mills.  At  fourteen  the  Indian  child 
is  a  man  under  the  Factory  Acts,  and  can  be  legally  em- 
ployed for  an  unlimited  number  of  hours.  It  is  really 
rather  appalling  to  read  that,  as  the  result  of  philanthropic 
agitation,  some  of  the  more  enlightened  mill-owners  have 
held  a  meeting,  and  decided  to  limit  the  tale  of  work  to 
twelve  hours  daily.  Twelve  hours  !  Think  of  it,  for  a 
grown  man  or  woman,  not  to  say  for  a  boy  of  fifteen,  or 
a  girl  of  sixteen,  in  a  room  sprayed  with  steam  heat  to 
keep  the  yarn  moist,  and  in  a  climate  which  makes  us 
break  into  a  profuse  perspiration  all  over  after  ten  minutes' 
gentle  walking  !  But  this  twelve  hours'  shift,  it  seems, 
is  a  sweeping  concession,  a  reform  so  extensive  that  even 
the  reformers  do  not  ask  for  more.  It  is  as  much  as  the 
good  mills  will  give ;  in  the  bad  mills  they  work  by  the 
old  Eastern  measure,  from  sunrise  to  sunset.  Consider 
what  that  means  in  the  Indian  summer,  when  it  is  dawn 
at  ^\e  and  light  till  seven !  Then  the  mill-hand  may 
work  his  fourteen  hours  at  a  stretch ;  and,  incredible  as  it 
may  seem,  even  that  is  not  the  limit.  There  is  a  great 
outcry  in  Bombay  against  the  *  electric-light  mills,'  which 
are  putting  in  artificial  illumination,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
keep  the  machinery  going  after  dark.  Thus  there  may 
be  a  fourteen  or  fifteen  hours  day  all  the  year  round,  and 
not  merely  in  the  long-drawn  days  of  the  early  summer. 

How  can  even  the  Indian  mill-hand  stand  it  ?  Partly, 
say  the  obstructives,  because  he  has  no  nerves,  and  partly 
because  he  is  accustomed  to  long  spaces  of  toil.  As  to 
the  nerves,  I  do  not  know.  It  is  one  of  the  convenient 
theories  we  adopt,  without  taking  much  trouble  to  test 
them.  The  Oriental  seems  nervous  enough  sometimes. 
But  that  he  can  labour  for  portentous  periods,  if  he  is 
allowed  to  go  his  own  pace  and  not  hustled,  is  apparent 


60  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

to  anyone  who  walks  through  the  bazaar  and  sees  the 
tailor  at  his  work  early  in  the  morning  and  late  into  the 
night.  With  all  this,  it  is  quite  certain  that  fourteen 
hours  spent  standing  before  a  machine  in  a  factory  is 
more  than  any  flesh  and  blood,  Eastern  or  Western,  can 
endure  without  physical  disaster.  The  Indian  mill-hand 
is  soon  worked  out.  Men  and  women  are  aged  pre- 
maturely, even  for  this  climate,  where  youth  flies  swiftly. 
Nor  would  the  operative  last  as  long  as  he  does,  if  he 
did  not  take  periodical  holidays  and  occasional  intervals 
of  recuperation  and  something  like  repose. 

He  is  by  nature  a  peasant,  an  agriculturist,  as  are  nine 
out  of  ten  of  the  inhabitants  of  India.     The  life  he  knows, 
the  life  he  loves,  is  that  of  the  village  community  and  the 
fields.     The  town  and  all  its  conditions  are  alien  to  him, 
unwelcome,  demoralising.     Poverty  has  brought  him  into 
the  city  to  pick  up  a  few  rupees  at  the  works;  but  his 
heart  is  in  the  mud  hut  away  in  the  hills  or  on  the  plains, 
with  the  buffalo  wallowing  in   the  byre,   the   chickens 
pecking  in  the  untidy  yard,  the  small  field  of  millet,  the 
tiny   patch   of   earth   which   his  uncles   and   aunts   and 
brothers   and  nephews,  perhaps    his  wife  and  children, 
tend   and  cherish.     When   the   burden  of  the   whirring 
spindles  and  humming  engines  is  too  much  for  him,  he 
takes  a  holiday  of  three  or  four  months,  and  goes  back  as 
he  says  to  'my  country.'     There  he  grubs  in  the  earth, 
and  delves  in  the  sun,  and  rests  in  the  shade,  and  feeds 
the  beasts,  and  gossips  by  the  tank,  and  feels  himself  a 
man  again,  till  the  call  for  more  rupees  sends  him  back 
to   the   mill.     When  he  has  had  enough  of  it,  and  can 
stand  the  strain  no  more,  he  returns  to  his  '  country '  for 
good.      His  hope  is  to  have   saved   enough,  during  his 
exile,  to  live  comfortably  in  his  retirement.     More  often 
he  has  spent  all  he  has  earned,  and  is  in  debt  to  the  small 
trader  and  the  village  money-lender  to  the  end. 


61 


CHAPTEE  V 
IN   CAMP 

Till   you  come  to    India,  you  do  not  understand  the 
possibilities  of  life  under  canvas.     In  most  countries  and 
climates  the  idea  of  luxury,  or  even  ordinary  comfort,  in  a 
camp,  would  seem  absurd.     It  is  supposed  to  be  a  hugger- 
mugger  makeshift  existence,  at  the  best,  in  which  you 
put  up  with  all  sorts  of  inconveniences,  on   the   same 
principle  as  that  which  induces  people  to  forego  some  of 
the  elementary  decencies  and  amenities  of  civilisation  on 
shipboard  or  the  railway.     Baths,  good  cookery,  meals 
served  with  refinement,  soft  beds,  adequate  shelter  from 
sun   and   rain,   facilities   for   reading   and   writing,    and 
privacy — who  would  look  for  these  in  a  place  in  which 
one  is  a  mere  temporary  sojourner  ?   It  is  unpleasant,  but 
soon  over.     That  is  why,  I  suppose,  we  submit  to  be 
locked  up  in  a  cupboard  to  dress,  undress,  and  sleep,  in 
company  with  a  perfect  stranger,  on  a  wagon-lit  train  or 
in  a  first-class  passenger  steamer.     People  go  into  tents 
either  to  satisfy  a  temporary  need  or  a  passing  caprice,  or 
under  conditions  which   do   not   allow  much   room   for 
choice.     A.  soldier  on  active  service  must  deem  himself 
lucky  if  he  gets  any  sort  of  covering  from  the  weather. 
If  his  tent  saves  him  from  sleeping  in  a  pool  of  rain- 
water or  shelters  him  from  a  snow-storm,  it  is  about  all 
he  can  ask,  and  more  than  he  will  usually  obtain. 

Some  of  the   newspaper   correspondents,   unused   to 
Indian  ways,  when  they  heard  that  they  were  to  live  in 


62  A   VISION  OF   INDIA 

camp  during  a  considerable  part  of  the  Prince  of  Wales's 
tour,  may  have  felt  moments  of  apprehension.  Those 
who  had  gone  through  more  than  one  serious  campaign 
recalled  the  hardships  and  privations  of  tent-life  under 
the  burning  skies  of  the  Sudan  or  the  merciless  blasts 
of  Manchuria.  Less  hardened  travellers  thought  of 
their  l  camping  out '  in  English  meadows ;  or  they  may 
have  had  memories  of  Easter  holiday  volunteering,  with 
half  a  dozen  men  packed  in  a  small  bell-tent,  spending 
laborious  mornings  in  emptying  pails,  washing  up  tea- 
things,  and  peeling  potatoes.  By  young  fellows,  released 
from  desk  and  office  for  a  few  days'  outing,  this  was 
easily  endured ;  responsible  persons,  with  work  to  do, 
might  find  it  less  attractive.  A  place  of  abode,  in 
which  there  would  be  no  room  to  stow  baggage,  to  write 
undisturbed,  or  to  dress  and  undress  in  comfort,  would 
have  been  disagreeable. 

There  was  no  cause  for  alarm.  The  first  camp  we 
came  to  was  a  revelation,  even  to  those  who  had  heard 
something  of  the  Indian  practice  in  these  matters.  Con- 
sidering how  large  the  party  was  that  travelled  with  the 
Prince,  I  had  not  anticipated  that  each  correspondent 
would  have  a  tent  to  himself,  and  was  wondering  who 
would  be  my  stable-companion.  But  when  we  drove 
into  the  canvas  town  one  of  the  first  objects  that  caught 
my  eye  was  a  small  white  sign-post,  planted  in  the 
ground,  with  my  own  name  painted  in  visible  black 
letters  upon  it,  and  it  was  signified  to  me  that  the  tent 
behind  this  notice-board  constituted  my  exclusive  do- 
main. And  a  surprisingly  desirable  little  estate  I  found 
it,  and  greatly  did  I  enjoy  the  two  and  a-half  days  I 
spent  therein.  I  parted  from  it  with  deep  regret, 
mitigated,  however,  by  the  reflection  that  other  and 
equally  satisfying  domiciles  awaited  me  at  various  sub- 
sequent stages  of  our  journey,  which,  indeed,  proved  to 


IN   CAMP  63 

be  the  case.  Sometimes  we  were  even  more  luxuriously 
lodged ;  sometimes  slightly  less  so.  But  this  first  tent 
of  mine  was  a  fair  average  specimen,  not  only  of  those 
which  I  occupied  at  other  times,  but  of  those  which 
form  the  domicile  of  many  Englishmen  during  a  sub- 
stantial portion  of  the  years  they  spend  in  Southern 
Asia. 

My  tent  is,  properly  speaking,  two  tents — one  inside 
the  other.  You  need  much  more  than  a  single  thickness 
of  canvas  between  yourself  and  the  searching  sun  of 
the  tropics.  Therefore  a  good  Indian  tent  is  made  with 
an  outer  and  an  inner  skin,  and  an  air-space  of  a  foot  or 
more  between  the  two  roofs.  The  inner  tent  is  the  one 
in  which  I  sleep  and  work.  It  is  about  sixteen  feet 
square,  and  about  seven  feet  high  at  the  sides,  rising  to 
perhaps  twenty  feet  at  the  apex,  where  the  shaft 
of  stout  bamboo  goes  through  the  covering.  This  tent 
is  of  the  single-pole  type,  having  one  main  central 
support,  with  plenty  of  thinner  posts  at  the  corners  and 
sides  to  keep  everything  taut  and  rigid.  Indeed,  the 
whole  concern  has  an  air  of  solidity  and  permanence, 
which  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when  one  reflects  that 
it  may  have  been  put  up  with  a  couple  of  hours'  work 
yesterday,  and  that  to-morrow  it  may  be  travelling  away 
on  a  bullock-cart,  a  mere  bundle  of  rods  and  sheets  and 
cordage. 

When  I  sit  in  this  combined  bedroom  and  parlour, 
my  eye  is  not  offended  by  the  sight  of  crude  rough 
canvas  ;  for  walls  and  sloping  ceiling  are  all  clothed  with 
hangings  of  some  stout  cotton  material,  of  a  gold-yellow 
hue,  with  a  small  geometrical  pattern  in  brown.  There 
is  even  a  sort  of  dado  or  fringe,  of  a  suitably  harmonious 
design,  where  roof  and  walls  join.  There  are  doorways 
or  oblong  openings  at  the  back,  front,  and  sides,  each 
covered  by  a  chick  or  curtain  of  lath,  which  admits  the 


64  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

air  and  keeps  out  the  sun,  besides  a  flap  of  the  same 
material  as  the  walls,  which  can  be  let  down  at  night. 

My  doorways,  however,  do  not  let  me  out  of  my  little 
territory  at  once.  They  give  upon  the  corridor  formed 
by  extending  the  roof  of  the  outer  tent  laterally  and 
bringing  its  sides  down  to  the  ground,  so  that  I  have  a 
passage  about  five  feet  wide  all  round.  At  one  corner 
this  corridor  is  enlarged  to  a  canvas  outhouse,  screened 
off  from  the  main  building.  Here  is  my  bath-room,  and 
it  is  large  enough  to  hold  a  wash-stand,  basins,  towel- 
horse,  and  a  great  oblong  zinc  cistern,  not  a  mere  tub,  in 
which  I  can  sit  down  and  bathe  in  comfort ;  or  I  can 
stand  upright  in  it,  and  have  water  poured  over  me,  ice- 
cold,  from  great  earthen  pitchers,  which  is  the  alluring, 
but  rather  perilous,  custom  of  many  Anglo-Indians  when 
heated  in  the  chase. 

My  saloon  is  well  furnished.  There  is  a  cotton  rug 
all  over  the  floor,  and  a  bed-mat.  It  is  no  case  of 
sleeping  on  the  earth  and  a  waterproof  sheet.  There 
is  a  regular  iron  bedstead,  with  proper  framework  for 
mosquito-curtains,  and  there  is  a  mattress,  and  sheets 
blankets  and  pillows,  which  things,  as  a  rule,  the  Anglo- 
Indian  traveller  carries  about  with  him  everywhere;  there 
is  a  writing-table,  a  dressing-table  with  mirror,  and  a 
folding  chest  of  drawers ;  and  there  are  two  cane  chairs, 
besides  a  large  well- wadded  armchair  in  which  I  can  take 
my  rest.  My  passages  and  bath-room  are  lighted  with 
lanterns  protected  by  wire  guards,  and  by  two  good  oil- 
lamps  (made  to  stow  away  in  tin  boxes  for  travelling), 
which  shed  a  bright  light  into  every  corner  of  my  saloon. 
Nothing  is  wanting.  There  is  an  inkstand,  with  pens, 
blotting-book,  and  stationery  on  the  table,  a  waste-paper 
basket  on  the  floor.  And  the  whole  compact  little  estab- 
lishment is  placed  on  a  square  of  turf,  carefully  kept 
green  by  diligent  watering,  with  a  small  path  or  minia- 


IN  CAMP  65 

ture  carriage-drive  edged  with  red  tiles  leading  up  to  the 
front  door. 

My  tent  is  one  of  a  hundred  or  so,  set  in  two  rows  on 
each  side  of  the  broad  main  street  of  the  camp,  and  along 
the  cross-roads,  which  branch  out  from  this  avenue. 
Larger  tents,  of  similar  construction  but  with  double 
poles  and  sometimes  two  rooms,  accommodate  important 
members  of  the  Koyal  suite,  or  serve  as  offices  for  those 
who  have  business  to  transact.  There  is  a  post-office, 
with  a  red  pillar-box  in  front,  and  a  notice  that  the  next 
collection  will  be  at  such  and  such  an  hour,  into  which 
receptacle  you  drop  your  letters  with  as  much  confidence 
as  if  you  were  in  a  London  square.  There  is  a  telegraph- 
tent,  with  a  staff  of  clerks  and  messengers  ;  and  there  are 
office-tents  for  the  military  secretary,  the  chief  of  the  staff, 
the  transport  director,  and  others,  and  a  press  room,  with 
tables,  and  writing  materials,  and  newspapers. 

In  a  little  crescent,  off  the  main  thoroughfare,  with  a 
flower-garden  in  front,  there  is  a  whole  range  of  spacious 
marquees,  with  silken  hangings,  which  serve  for  recep- 
tion-room, drawing-room,  smoking-room — with  a  counter 
where  you  can  get  tea,  and  cooling  drinks,  and  cigars  at 
most  times — and  dining-room.  Behind  this  last  is  a 
square  yard,  with  high  canvas  walls,  where  are  small 
pyramidal  tents  and  other  structures,  and  brick  ovens, 
and  a  whole  corps  of  cooks  and  waiters,  who  between 
them  contrive  to  produce  each  morning,  noon,  and  even- 
ing, breakfasts,  luncheons,  and  dinners  'which  would  do 
credit  to  the  kitchen  of  a  first-rate  hotel  in  any  European 
or  American  city.  Tube  wells  and  pumps  provide  an 
unlimited  supply  of  cold  water;  great  iron  cauldrons, 
with  brick  furnaces,  enable  anybody  to  have  hot  baths 
three  times  a  day,  if  he  pleases,  and  in  India  many  people 
do  please  to  bathe  at  frequent  intervals  and  at  all  sorts  of 
odd  hours  ;  and  there  is  a  tall  electric-light  standard  in 


66  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

front  of  the  dining-marquee,  and  lamps  on  poles  scattered 
about  freely.  Though  there  are  carriages  and  cavalry- 
escorts  and  mounted  messengers  and  sowars  moving  along 
the  camp  roads  all  day,  there  is  no  cloud  of  dust;  for 
the  bheesties,  with  their  huge  leathern  water-bags,  slung 
over  the  patient  backs  of  their  bullocks,  are  always  at 
work  keeping  the  whole  camp  moist  and  fresh,  and 
making  it  difficult  to  believe  that  its  site  was  a  space  of 
arid  sand  or  a  burnt-up  patch  of  scrub  and  friable  plough- 
land  not  many  days  ago. 

When  Royalty  travels  things  are  at  their  best,  and  no 
doubt  this  is  an  encampment  complete  and  luxurious  even 
for  India.  But  with  a  little  less  elegance  and  refinement 
in  the  upholstery  and  the  reception-rooms,  a  little  less 
perfection  in  the  menus  of  the  dinner-table,  it  is  such  a 
camp  as  the  Viceroy  often  has,  and  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  and  at  times  even  a  Lieutenant-Governor  or  a  Chief 
Commissioner.  It  is  a  different  matter  for  that  humbler, 
but  most  necessary,  functionary,  the  lynch-pin  and  crank- 
shaft of  Indian  administration,  the  District  Officer.  Yet, 
when  he  traverses  his  domain,  he  will  carry  with  him  a 
small  cohort  of  servants,  six  or  eight  bullock-carts,  or  a 
score  or  so  of  camels,  and  three  or  more  commodious 
tents,  like  that  described  above,  with  furniture  that  takes 
to  pieces,  in  order  that  it  may  travel  in  sections.  People 
1  go  into  camp,'  to  use  the  technical  phrase,  so  frequently 
in  India,  that  they  must  make  themselves  reasonably 
comfortable  over  the  process. 

The*  Indian  camp  is  a  necessity  because  of  the  condi- 
tions of  Anglo-Indian  existence  and  administration.  It  is 
not  a  mere  passing  expedient,  but  a  part  of  the  ordinary 
machinery  of  life.  Almost  everybody  is  in  camp  at 
some  time  or  other,  and  a  large  number  of  highly  im- 
portant persons  spend  a  considerable  portion  of  each  year 
in  this  situation.     The  Viceroy  is  in  camp  when  he  makes 


•  cr 


•  t    O  •    I 
C    C    C   C    c 


C  C  «  «  I 
c  •  •• 


•  •  c 


e  c  t  c 
•  t  c  * 


IN  CAMP  67 

his  regular  progresses  and  when  he  pays  visits  to  native 
potentates  or  goes  on  a  shooting-expedition.  The  Com- 
mander-in-Chief is  constantly  in  camp,  visiting  the  various 
military  stations,  inspecting  cantonments,  supervising 
manoeuvres,  and  seeing  battalions,  brigades,  or  whole 
divisions  out  for  exercise.  Political  Agents  camp  out  all 
over  the  group  of  feudatory  States  which  they  superintend. 
Lieutenant-Governors  and  Chief  Commissioners  go  into 
camp  when  they  wish  to  traverse  their  territories  and  see 
how  their  subordinate  satraps  are  getting  on ;  so  do  the 
heads  and  high  officials  of  the  Public  Works  and  the 
Irrigation  departments ;  and  the  civilian  District  Officers 
spend  from  a  third  to  nearly  a  half  of  their  period  of 
active  service  under  canvas.  Anybody,  in  fact,  who 
travels  much  in  India,  and  goes  at  all  far  afield,  must  be 
prepared  to  live  in  camp  ;  for  outside  the  large  cities  and 
the  regular  tourist  route,  along  which  the  cold- weather  ex- 
cursionist runs  his  precipitate  career,  there  are  no  hotels, 
and  very  little  accommodation  of  any  sort  for  the  tra- 
veller save  such  as  he  brings  with  him.  In  the  villages 
there  is  none  at  all.  So  the  voyager  whose  way  lies  in 
the  country  districts,  in  the  forest,  the  jungle,  the  desert, 
or  the  vast  cultivated  plains,  and  among  the  smaller  towns 
— he  journeys  with  some  such  equipage  as  that  described, 
and  contrives  to  make  himself  fairly  comfortable  as  he 
goes  along. 

It  is  not  a  case  of  self-indulgence.  The  autumnal 
inquisitor,  taking  a  casual  glance  at  one  of  these  camps, 
with  all  its  appurtenances  and  appliances,  may  go  back 
and  talk  about  Oriental  luxury.  But  the  Indian  official 
is  compelled  to  give  himself  some  of  the  comforts  of  home 
in  his  tent,  if  he  is  to  reside  in  it  for  weeks  and  months 
at  a  time,  and  do  serious  work  there.  The  camp,  unless 
perhaps  he  is  shooting  or  paying  a  visit  to  friends,  is  not 
a  place  in  which  he  amuses  himself.     It  is  the  scene  of 

r  2 


68  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

definite,  regular,  important,  anxious,  day-to-day  business  ; 
and  you  cannot  get  through  business  properly  with 
habitually  inconvenient  surroundings,  especially  in  a 
climate  in  which  the  native  of  Northern  Europe  can  only 
retain  his  energy  and  efficiency  by  taking  a  good  deal  of 
care  of  himself.  A  person  who,  while  in  camp,  still 
remains  executive  ruler,  revenue  authority,  head  tax- 
collector,  and  administrator  of  the  criminal  law,  for 
several  hundred  thousand  human  beings,  cannot  afford  to 
impair  his  efficiency  by  exposing  himself  to  superfluous 
privations  and  avoidable  discomforts. 

Take  the  example  of  the  District  Magistrate,  the  Col- 
lector, or  the  Deputy- Commissioner,  as  he  is  called  in 
some  provinces.  Under  the  standing  orders  of  his 
Government  he  is  obliged  to  go  on  tour  through  his 
district  for  several  months  in  each  year.  Normally  he 
would  be  so  engaged,  on  and  off,  from  about  the  end  of 
October  till  near  the  beginning  of  the  hot  weather  in  the 
early  spring.  The  most  vital  part  of  his  official  duties  is 
performed  in  this  period,  during  which  he  visits  the 
various  villages  and  towns  under  his  command,  examines 
revenue  questions  in  conference  with  the  subordinate 
officials  on  the  spot,  hears  complaints,  receives  petitions, 
casts  an  eye  on  education  and  public  works,  and  as  he 
moves  from  place  to  place  acts  as  a  minor  judicial  officer 
and  court  of  first  instance.  Situated  as  he  is,  he  must 
take  his  belongings  and  the  tools  of  his  trade  with  him. 

For  those  many  weeks  his  camp  must  be  his  office 
and  his  home.  His  bungalow  at  the  district  capital  will 
be  shut  up,  or  left  with  a  servant  or  two  in  charge.  If 
he  is  a  married  man,  with  no  children,  his  wife,  unless 
she  is  in  Europe  or  at  the  Hills,  may  come  with  him. 
So  does  his  cook,  his  butler,  his  bearer  or  valet,  his 
horses,  with  a  syce  or  groom  to  each,  his  laundry-man, 
Jiis  dirzee  or  tailor  and  mender,  his  table-servants,  his 


IN   CAMP  69 

sweepers  to  empty  slops  and  do  dirty  work  generally ; 
and,  if  his  wife  accompanies  him,  she  will  bring  her 
ayah,  who  acts  (for  the  most  part  inadequately)  as  her 
personal  attendant  and  maid.  The  magistrate's  house- 
hold is  with  him  in  the  camp,  since  that  is  to  be  rendered 
an  endurable  residence  for  a  busy  man,  struggling  under 
a  load  of  responsibility.  His  office,  of  course,  must  be 
with  him  too.  He  has  his  clerk,  and  copyist,  and  tran- 
scriber ;  he  must  take  his  documents,  his  records,  and  his 
letter-files,  his  stationery  and  his  books  of  reference. 
He  cannot,  at  a  moment's  notice,  send  for  a  paper  to 
his  headquarters,  which  may  be  thirty  miles  distant, 
through  more  or  less  roadless  jungle.  When  he  opens 
his  bed  of  justice  before  the  porch  of  his  tent,  or  in- 
augurates a  local  commission  of  inquiry,  he  must  have 
the  requisite  material  to  hand.  So  his  office  desk  and 
his  despatch-boxes  travel  about  with  him  by  bullock-cart 
and  camels,  or  are  sent  on  ahead  during  the  night,  in 
order  to  be  ready  for  him  as  he  moves  from  stage  to  stage. 
This  is  what  renders  the  Indian  camp  necessary. 
What  makes  it  possible  is  the  abundance  of  available 
man-power  and  beast-power.  It  is  not  till  you  come  to 
the  East  that  you  realise  how  cheap  the  human  animal 
can  be,  and  how  plentiful  is  the  supply  of  the  other  slightly 
more  expensive  animals,  the  quadrupedal  kinds,  which  are 
his  companions  in  toil.  A  man,  a  bullock,  a  donkey 
— they  are  always  to  be  had ;  the  horse,  the  camel,  even 
the  elephant,  can  be  obtained  when  wanted.  Looking 
at  a  District  Officer's  paraphernalia,  I  noticed  the  cum- 
brous clumsiness  of  his  receptacle  for  documents.  I  told 
him  of  a  new  invention,  which  would  enable  him  to  keep 
his  papers  in  better  order,  without  burdening  himself  with 
half  the  weight.  He  admitted  its  merits,  but  demurred 
to  the  initial  cost,  which  was  rather  heavy.  It  would  save 
labour  in  handling   and  transport,  I  urged.     'Yes,'  he 


70  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

replied,  '  but  that  is  not  worth  our  while  to  consider.  We 
like  things  to  be  cheap  and  roomy.  We  are  not  very  par- 
ticular about  their  lightness  in  travelling  ;  for  what  is  an 
extra  coolie  or  two,  or  another  half-hundredweight  when 
you  are  loading  a  bullock-waggon  ? ' 

When  the  Deputy-Commissioner  travels,  the  headman 
of  the  next  village  is  told  that  so  many  men  and  so  many 
animals  will  be  needed  for  his  use,  and  they  are  forth- 
coming. The  owners  and  the  workers  are  paid  for  their 
services,  at  a  rate  fixed  by  Government,  and  they  get  the 
money,  or  so  much  of  it  as  is  not  intercepted  by  native 
subordinates.  No  doubt  the  stream  which  flows  from  the 
Sirkar  and  the  Sahib  becomes  an  exiguous  trickle  by  the 
time  it  reaches  the  dusty  palms  of  the  peasant. 

He  may  esteem  himself  rather  lucky  if  anything  comes 
his  way.  When  a  late  Political  Agent  went  on  tour  some 
years  ago  there  moved  with  him,  in  the  shape  of  subordi- 
nate officials,  military  escort,  clerks,  assistants,  and 
followers,  a  train  of  fifteen  hundred  people  all  told.  And 
where  he  went  the  country  was  swept  nearly  bare  for  six 
miles  or  so  on  each  side  of  his  track.  The  villagers  would 
learn  that  the  Sahib  would  require  a  hundred  sheep,  fifty 
goats,  a  drove  of  pigs,  so  many  maunds  of  grain,  bowls 
of  milk,  earthen  chatties,  bullock-carts,  and  so  forth, 
and  three  days'  labour  from  an  army  of  coolies.  Nine- 
tenths  of  these  commodities  he  did  not  want  and  did  not 
get.  He  was  a  particularly  humane  and  considerate 
man,  and  he  laid  down  careful  regulations  to  protect  the 
country-folk  from  being  robbed  and  cheated.  But  robbed 
and  cheated  they  were,  all  the  same,  as  I  happen  to  know 
from  unimpeachable  first-hand  European  evidence. 

This  was  in  native  states,  where  things  are  done  more 
loosely  than  in  our  territory;  but  even  in  provinces 
directly  administered  by  our  civilians  I  believe  the  same 
abuses,  in   a  minor  form,  are  often   practised  in  spite 


IN  CAMP  71 

of  the  vigilance  of  the  officials  and  elaborate  Govern- 
ment regulations.  What  can  the  Huzur  do  ?  Between 
him  and  the  people  there  lies  a  great,  squeezable,  elastic, 
but  nearly  impervious,  cushion  of  inferior  native  official- 
dom, which  keeps  him  from  direct  contact  with  the  sub- 
ject masses.  If  he  gives  an  order,  there  is  a  native  sub- 
ordinate to  see  to  its  execution  ;  if  he  makes  a  payment, 
the  money  usually  passes  through  native  hands.  That  is 
the  Indian  way. 

The  poor  man  submits.  He  has  been  taught  for 
generations  to  endure,  and  he  deems  it  part  of  the  order 
of  nature  that  those  who  serve  the  great  and  powerful  of 
the  earth  should  fleece  him  and  domineer  over  him.  If 
the  process  is  carried  out  with  some  degree  of  moderation, 
he  does  not  greatly  complain  of  it.  We  try  to  teach  him 
that  he  has  rights,  which  the  law  will  enforce,  even  against 
officers  of  state  and  their  retainers ;  but  he  is  slow  to  learn 
that  lesson  in  the  villages,  though  in  the  towns  it  is  a 
different  story. 

The  peasant  inherits  a  tradition  of  servitude.  Under 
his  old  masters  he  toiled  hard  and  long,  and  often  for  no 
reward.  By  his  newer  masters  he  is  paid,  or  should  be 
paid,  for  his  services ;  but  the  habit  of  patient  endurance 
is  in  his  blood,  and  for  his  pittance  he  will  perform  an 
astonishing  amount  of  monotonous,  prolonged,  uninviting 
drudgery.  In  my  first  camp,  and  often  enough  after- 
wards, I  saw  men  going  over  the  ground  on  their  knees 
and  haunches,  picking  up  the  filth  and  ordure  with  their 
bare  hands ;  everywhere  in  India  you  get  human  beings 
to  do  all  kinds  of  repellent  cleaning  and  emptying  which 
in  other  countries  have  to  be  done  by  mechanical  assist- 
ance or  they  would  not  be  done  at  all.  Take  the  case 
— not  the  worst  case — of  the  punkah-wallah,  the  poor 
wretch  who  crouches  in  a  corner  of  the  verandah  or  in 
the  dust  outside  it  and  pulls  at  the  cord  which  moves 


72  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

the  ventilating-fan.  You  pay  him  about  seven  shillings 
a  month  or  less ;  and  for  hours  at  a  stretch  this  ragged 
automaton  goes  on  jerking  at  his  string,  through  the  fierce 
day,  when  you  are  working  or  dining,  and  the  long  hot 
night  while  you  are  trying  to  sleep.  It  is  not  hard  work, 
and  it  is  not  skilled  work — anything  with  an  arm  and 
some  fingers  could  do  it ;  but  to  most  men  of  European 
nerves  and  temper  the  task  would  be  a  sheer  impossibility, 
or  would  lead  to  madness  and  death.  The  punhah-wallah 
does  not  die  prematurely,  he  does  not  become  insane,  he 
does  not  take  to  drink.  He  is  miserably  poor,  but  still  not 
without  self-respect,  aware  that  he  is  born  of  the  breed 
which  waves  fans  to  keep  other  people  cool,  and  conscious 
that  he  is  doing  his  duty  in  that  state  of  life  to  which  it 
has  pleased  God  to  call  him.  For  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  that  usually  neglected  article  of  the  Church 
Catechism  you  must  go  to  India. 


.11 
c  c  c  c  c 


73 


CHAPTEE    VI 
ON   THE    LINE 

Eailw ay-travelling  in  India  is  a  thing  apart,  even 
for  those  who  take  it  in  a  first-class  compartment.  We 
are  in  a  land  of  mighty  distances.  The  Anglo-Indian, 
normally  a  migrant,  a  bird  of  passage,  spends  much  of 
his  time  in  long  journeys  by  rail.  And  his  journeyings 
are  somewhat  elaborate  proceedings,  not  to  be  transacted 
in  the  casual  fashion  customary  in  the  Outer  World. 

It  is  no  case  of  packing  a  portmanteau,  whistling  at 
the  door  for  a  hansom,  arriving  at  the  station  ten  minutes 
before  the  train  starts,  giving  a  sixpence  to  a  civil  porter, 
and  finding  yourself  under  way  with  an  open  magazine 
on  your  knees.  There  are  no  hansoms ;  and  if  there 
were,  a  file  of  them  would  be  needed  to  transport  a  very 
ordinary  Sahib's  effects.  The  amount  of  luggage  which 
people  take  with  them,  even  on  comparatively  short 
journeys,  would  amaze  those  austere  travellers  who  believe 
that  one  trunk  and  a  handbag  should  be  enough  to  carry 
them  anywhere.  This  may  be  sound  reasoning  in  Europe, 
but  it  certainly  does  not  apply  in  India.  In  that  region 
every  traveller,  every  white  traveller,  at  least,  must  move 
rather  like  a  snail,  and  sometimes  at  a  snail's  pace,  with 
his  house,  or  a  good  part  of  it,  on  his  back.  When 
he  arrives  at  his  destination  he  cannot  rely  upon  finding 
effective  substitutes,  not  merely  for  the  luxuries,  but 
for  the  common  necessaries,  which  he  may  have  left 
behind.      Thus,   like   an    army    in    campaigning   order, 


74  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

or  a  ship  on  the  high  seas,  he  must  have  sufficient  in 
his  own  stores  to  be  equal  to  all  emergencies.  Perhaps 
his  point  of  arrival  is  a  camp  on  the  plains  or  among  the 
hills,  perhaps  it  is  a  bungalow  in  the  cantonments  or  the 
civil  lines  adjacent  to  a  native  city.  In  any  case,  unless 
he  goes  into  one  of  the  Presidency  towns,  where  life  has 
been  Europeanised,  he  cannot  hope  to  make  good  any 
omissions,  except  by  the  generosity  of  friends,  who  have, 
as  a  rule,  nothing  to  spare.  Suppose,  when  he  opens  his 
despatch-box  to  write,  he  finds  that  he  has  forgotten  such 
trifles  as  ink,  or  envelopes,  or  the  filler  for  his  stylographic 
pen,  or  suppose  his  '  boy '  confesses  to  a  dearth  of,  say, 
bootlaces  or  white  neckties.  There  can  be  no  sending  off 
a  messenger  to  the  stationer  or  to  the  haberdasher  in  the 
town,  no  putting  up,  for  once,  with  the  resources  of  the 
village  shop.  There  is  no  village  shop.  Even  if  the 
European  station  is  nominally  at  a  large  town,  that  town 
is  quite  likely  to  be  three  or  four  miles  distant,  with 
nothing  beyond  a  native  bazaar.  The  bootlaces,  and  the 
stationery,  soap,  medicine,  books,  games — all  the  things 
that  civilised  man  and  woman  require — must  be  brought 
with  the  baggage  or  done  without. 

This  alone  would  render  the  Anglo-Indian's  trans- 
port train  formidable.  But,  then,  the  conditions  of  his 
life  compel  him  to  load  himself  with  a  quantity  of  other 
articles,  which  do  not  usually  form  part  of  a  travelling- 
kit  elsewhere.  Some  things,  it  is  true,  in  common  use  in 
most  countries,  he  may  leave  behind.  One  of  them  is  a 
purse.  In  India  you  carry  your  own  mattrass  with  you ; 
but  if  you  forget  to  bring  your  money,  you  will  not  greatly 
miss  it.  Some  small  coin  for  occasional  tips  is  useful ; 
but  even  that  will  be  supplied  by  your  bearer  out  of  the 
current  petty  cash,  for  which  he  renders  you  periodical 
and  mysterious  accounts.  Otherwise  currency  is  scarcely 
necessary  in  a  land  where  everybody's  income  and  every- 


ON  THE  LINE  75 

body's  status  are  accurately  known.  Except  for  the  tourists 
who  frequent  the  towns  and  the  hotels  and  are  requested 
to  pay  cash,  a  card-case  or,  at  the  worst,  a  cheque-book  is 
all  that  is  required.  If  you  are  a  person  of  the  proper 
and  recognised  position,  you  get  everything  you  want 
in  India  by  the  attractively  simple  process  of  handing  in 
a  chit,  or  scrap  of  paper  signed  with  your  name.  Indeed, 
where  natives  are  the  intermediaries,  the  chit  is  in  most 
cases  compulsory.  Employers  and  traders  do  not  care  to 
have  small  amounts  of  money  paid  directly  into  the  hands 
of  their  Asiatic  clerks  and  servants.  In  the  club  smoking- 
room,  if  you  call  for  a  penny  cheroot  and  a  halfpenny 
glass  of  soda-water,  you  render  yourself  responsible  for 
the  debt  by  giving  a  chit  to  the  waiter.  In  due  course, 
these  promissory-notes  come  home  to  roost,  but  money 
seldom  passes  even  then.  A  postal-order,  or  a  draft  on 
one  of  those  admirable  agents,  who  paternally  supervise 
the  finances  of  Anglo-Indians  from  the  seaport  capitals, 
will  settle  the  matter.  With  a  credit  from  Messrs. 
King,  King  &  Co.  of  Bombay  in  your  pocket-book  you 
can  buy  most  things  vendible  from  Cashmere  to  Ceylon. 

But  if  you  need  not  burden  yourself  with  much  in  the 
way  of  notes  and  bullion,  there  seems  no  limit  to  the  rest 
of  your  impedimenta.  First,  you  must  have  your  bed- 
ding. This  is  an  absolute  necessity  without  which  nobody 
travels.  In  the  East  you  understand  the  meaning  of  the 
Biblical  command  :  '  Take  up  thy  bed  and  walk.'  People 
carry  their  beds  with  them  wherever  they  go :  even  the 
native  walks  about  with  his,  which  is  the  less  difficult  since 
it  often  is  no  more  than  a  square  of  cotton  counterpane. 
As  for  the  European,  he  brings  his  sleeping-equipage 
with  him,  whether  he  stays  at  an  hotel,  or  spends  the 
night  in  a  railway-carriage,  or  visits  a  friend.  The 
bundle,  containing  a  razai,  or  wadded  quilt,  two  pairs  of 
blankets  thick  and  thin,  sheets,  pillows,  and  perhaps  an 


76  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

eiderdown  coverlet,  the  whole  done  up  in  a  big  canvas 
hold-all,  is  never  omitted.  The  bedstead,  a  mere  frame- 
work of  wood,  with  strings  or  tape- webbings  across  it,  is 
to  be  found  in  most  places,  and,  if  not,  it  is  one  of  the 
things  that  can  be  bought  in  the  bazaars ;  but  the 
bed-furniture  cannot  be  reckoned  on,  even  in  hospitable 
private  quarters.  Many  people  will  willingly  provide  you 
with  a  room  or  a  tent  to  sleep  in,  but  they  will  have  no 
blankets  and  razais  available,  and  will  expect  you  to 
bring  your  own.  Similarly  you  may  sometimes  borrow  a 
horse,  but  may  have  to  supply  your  own  saddle  and  bridle. 
So  the  traveller  takes  these  articles  too.  Then  a  folding 
table  is  a  very  handy  thing  to  have  in  a  railway-carriage, 
where  you  may  want  to  write  or  eat,  and  it  is  useful  again 
in  camps  and  bungalows  where  there  is  not  always  quite 
enough  furniture  to  '  go  round.' 

On  the  same  principle  a  folding  deck-chair  is  added  to 
the  list :  one  can  never  have  too  many  of  them  on 
verandahs  and  places  where  they  lounge.  A  tiffin-basket, 
with  teapot,  cups,  plates,  spoons,  a  couple  of  bottles  of 
soda-water,  a  pot  of  marmalade,  and  a  tin  of  biscuits, 
cannot  be  dispensed  with  on  long  journeys,  where  a 
restaurant-car  is  not  always  available,  and  the  refresh- 
ment-rooms are  far  apart.  For  the  dark  evenings  a  lamp 
is  requisite,  and  it  is  often  taken  with  the  luggage : 
usually,  what  is  called  a  camp-lantern,  a  fine  metal-and- 
glass  affair,  with  a  copious  kerosene  reservoir,  carried 
safely  in  a  great  tin  case.  Another  tin  case  holds  two  or 
three  topis,  or  pith-helmets,  absolutely  necessary,  of 
course,  and  far  too  ample  for  any  ordinary  hat-box. 
Kiding-breeches,  boots,  leggings,  spurs,  whips,  a  gun  or 
two,  and  a  rifle,  cannot  be  forgotten  in  a  land  where 
everybody  rides  and  most  people  shoot.  Add  to  all  these, 
clothes  in  great  abundance,  evening  dress  and  dresses 
for  dinner  and  parties,  light  suits  of  flannel  or  khaki  for 


ON  THE  LINE  77 

the  heat  of  the  day,  warm  garments  and  wraps  for  the 
chilly  mornings  and  evenings,  and  it  is  not  surprising 
that  a  small  mountain  of  trucks  and  packages  has  to  be 
conveyed  to  the  station  when  *  master  '  and  the  Mem- 
sahib  set  out  for  even  a  comparatively  short  journey. 

But  the  business  of  transport  rests  lightly  on  their  own 
shoulders.  The  servants  manage  it.  Some  hours  before 
the  train  is  due  to  leave,  a  bullock-cart,  or  camel-cart,  or 
perhaps  even  an  elephant-lorry,  arrives  at  the  bungalow,  and 
takes  the  whole  load  to  the  station,  in  charge  of  the  head 
'  boy.'  Round  it,  on  arrival,  a  disorderly  crowd  of  ragged 
coolies  collects,  and  amid  squabbling  and  objurgations 
and  disparaging  remarks  about  their  female  relatives,  the 
various  parcels  are  distributed  among  them.  The  number 
of  these  bearers  is  large.  My  own  not  immoderate  personal 
effects  have  furnished  employment  for  eleven  persons. 
But  that  is  because  each  porter  will  only  carry  a  single 
packet,  whatever  its  size  or  weight.  One  man  will  stagger 
along  with  a  gigantic  dress-trunk  on  his  head,  another 
will  sail  away  with  nothing  but  a  pocket  camera.  There 
is  much  competition  for  the  smaller  parcels,  since  every 
coolie  receives  the  same  number  of  annas  or  pice, 
whatever  his  burden.  Long  after  all  this  excitement 
has  subsided,  the  owner  of  the  property  drives  down 
comfortably  in  a  carriage  or  pony-cart,  having  sent  the 
indispensable  chit  to  the  station-master,  asking  that 
official  to  allow  his  servants  to  stow  his  hand-baggage  in 
the  compartment  reserved  for  him.  Hand-baggage  is  an 
elastic  term.  The  two  extreme  interpretations  are  to  be 
met  with  in  the  United  States  and  in  India.  On  a  train 
in  the  West  you  have  about  room  enough  in  the  parlour- 
car  for  a  minute  satchel,  in  which  you  can  keep  a  razor 
and  a  toothbrush.  In  a  first-class  carriage  on  an  Indian 
railway,  the  voyager  expects  to  find  space  for  at  least  a 
leather  portmanteau,  a  suit-case,  a  dressing-bag,  a  hat  -box, 


78  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

a  helmet-case,  a  lunch-basket,  and  a  huge  roll  of  bedding. 
The  rest  of  his  modest  belongings  will  have  been  deposited 
in  the  brake-van. 

When  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  under  these 
conditions,  the  place  becomes  a  little  congested.  The 
sleeping-compartment  may  legally  hold  four;  but  there 
are  seldom  more  than  two,  and  often  the  traveller  may 
get  a  whole  compartment  to  himself.  The  seats  are  wide, 
and  when  pulled  out  for  the  night  they  make  comfortable 
foundations  for  the  passenger's  blankets  and  sheets,  laid 
out  for  him  by  his  own  servant,  who  is  boxed  away  in 
another  part  of  the  train.  This  assiduous  retainer  visits 
his  master  at  intervals  during  the  day  and  night,  brings 
him  the  chota  hazri  or  early  tea  and  toast,  in  the  morning, 
draws  his  attention  to  the  approach  of  stations  where 
lunch  and  dinner  are  to  be  had,  and  supplies  him  with 
ice  and  soda-water  at  intervals.  Tea  and  ice  and  soda- 
water  are  to  be  had  at  most  places  in  India.  Much 
of  the  rolling-stock  of  the  Indian  railways  is  venerable 
with  age,  and  stands  in  considerable  need  of  renovation 
and  improvement;  though,  on  the  other  hand,  certain 
of  the  more  enterprising  managers  of  the  State  lines 
have  recently  placed  on  their  rails  first-class  carriages  of 
the  most  admirable  quality.  Some  of  the  new  carriages 
of  the  Great  Indian  Peninsular,  the  East  Indian,  and  the 
Oudh  and  Kohilkhand  railways  would  be  hard  to  beat 
anywhere.  And  even  the  worst  of  the  Indian  first-class 
compartments  have  windows  which  will  close  and  efficient 
lattice-shutters  to  keep  out  the  sun  ;  and  a  lavatory,  with 
taps  that  will  work,  and  a  cistern  that  is  not  allowed  to 
run  dry.  In  the  cool  season,  or  at  night,  a  journey 
under  these  conditions  js  not  unpleasant.  But  at  other 
times,  when  the  heat  burns  through  the  woodwork  of 
the  shutters,  and  the  inside  of  the  carriage  is  an  oven, 
while  the  world  beyond  is  a  furnace,  the  traveller  may 


ON  THE   LINE  79 

sometimes  sigh  for  the  rabbit-hutches  of  a  damp  little 
island  where,  at  least,  yon  can  open  the  window  without 
being  choked  by  fiery  dust,  and  put  your  head  outside 
without  the  risk  of  sunstroke. 

If  travelling  in  the  hot  weather  and  in  the  daytime 
may  have  its  inconveniences  even  for  the  Sahib  amid  the 
amenities  of  the  first-class,  what  must  it  be  for  the  native 
who  travels  third  ?  The  authorities  of  the  Indian  railway 
companies  do  not  greatly  disturb  themselves  about  the 
comfort  of  their  third-class  passengers,  being  content  to 
carry  them  in  enormous  numbers  at  marvellously  low 
rates.  For  these  voyagers,  a  kind  of  slightly  superior 
cattle-truck,  packed  rather  closer  than  careful  drovers 
would  permit,  is  usually  considered  sufficient.  A  third- 
class  car  on  an  Indian  railway  is  not  an  attractive 
vehicle  for  white  people.  I  tried  it  myself  for  short 
periods,  and  I  found  the  experience  more  instructive 
than  enjoyable.  As  a  means  of  conveyance  I  am  free 
to  confess  that  I  preferred  the  Eoyal  special  trains. 

The  native,  however,  has  no  such  feeling,  or,  at  any 
rate,  he  is  not  prevented  by  it  from  patronising  the  rail- 
ways to  the  utmost  extent  of  his  resources.  The  people 
of  India  have  taken  most  kindly  to  railway-travelling, 
which  is  to  them  not  so  much  a  disagreeable  necessity  as 
a  delightful  and  exhilarating  recreation.  The  fact  should 
qualify  the  dogmatism  of  those  who  talk  too  confidently 
about  the  changelessness  of  the  immovable  East.  We 
are  told  that  the  Oriental  will  endure  no  innovations,  that 
he  will  not  look  at  a  new  invention,  that  he  insists  on 
doing  everything  precisely  in  the  same  fashion  as  his 
fathers  before  him.  Yet  he  seems  willing  enough  to 
adopt  novelties  when  they  suit  his  purpose.  A  case  in 
point  is  that  of  the  sewing-machine.  From  the  days  of 
Shem  the  son  of  Noah,  and  Arphaxad  the  son  of  Shem, 
the  East  has  undoubtedly  sewn  its  garments  and  its  fabrics 


80  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

by  hand.  Forty  years  ago,  many  people  would  have  con- 
fidently predicted  that  it  would  go  on  doing  the  same 
thing  till  the  last  Flood  of  all.  The  prophecy  would 
have  been  fallacious.  The  East  now  sews  by  machinery. 
The  name  of  Singer  is  known  from  the  Mediterranean  to 
the  Pacific.  In  every  bazaar  in  India  one  may  see  men — 
they  are  always  men,  not  women — in  turban  or  Mussul- 
man cap,  crouching  over  the  needle-plate  and  working  the 
pedals.  No  prejudice  in  favour  of  the  traditional  methods 
has  interfered  with  the  employment  of  this  instrument, 
now  that  its  utility  is  understood.  Another  example  is 
the  use  of  mineral  oil  as  an  illuminant.  The  cheap 
petroleum  lamp  is  fast  driving  out  the  butty  or  chirag, 
the  earthenware  saucer  of  animal  fat  or  tallow,  with 
its  floating  wick,  which  has  furnished  light  to  countless 
Eastern  households  for  centuries.  The  cubical  kerosene- 
tin  is  now  a  most  familiar  object  in  every  village,  and  it  is 
fast  superseding  the  great  brass  bowl  or  the  chatty  of  rough 
red  pottery  as  a  vessel  for  carrying  water  from  the  well. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  railway.  At  their  first  intro- 
duction, the  '  fire-carriages  '  of  the  English  were  regarded 
by  the  natives  with  suspicion  and  alarm.  There  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  they  contributed  towards  that 
general  ferment  of  men's  minds  which  preceded  the 
Mutiny.  It  was  some  time  before  the  natives  could  over- 
come their  distrust  of  an  invention  which  seemed  clearly 
of  diabolical  origin.  But  this  sentiment  wore  away  as  the 
value  of  the  new  mode  of  locomotion  came  to  be  under- 
stood, and  now  there  are  no  more  ardent  and  enthusiastic 
rail  way- travellers  in  the  world  than  the  lower  classes 
among  the  people  of  India.  They  take  a  journey  by 
train  whenever  they  can  spare  the  time  and  afford  the 
money,  evidently  regarding  the  occasion  as  one  of  en- 
joyment and  festivity.  It  is  an  amusement  like  riding  a 
bicycle  or  driving  in  a  motor,  to  which  latter  proceeding 


ON  THE   LINE  81 

the  wealthier  natives  are  also  taking  very  kindly.  So 
popular  is  the  railway  that  many  families  will  save  up 
their  spare  cash  for  weeks  and  months  in  order  to 
enjoy  a  trip.  The  whole  clan,  with  its  friends,  retainers, 
and  dependants,  fathers,  mothers,  children,  thirty  or  forty 
in  a  batch,  will  go  on  the  journey,  with  apparently  their 
entire  worldly  possessions  tied  up  in  enormous  bundles. 

You  can  hardly  enter  an  Indian  railway-station  with- 
out coming  upon  one  or  more  of  these  tribal  excursion 
parties,  with  probably  another  horde  of  their  friends  to  see 
them  off,  the  whole  crowd  talking,  shrieking,  gesticulating, 
arguing  with  one  another,  or  wrangling  with  coolies  and 
officials,  and  buying  eatables  and  cheap  cigarettes  from 
the  hawkers  who  pervade  the  platform ;  so  that  the 
place  usually  looks  as  if  a  permanent  Bank-holiday  were 
in  progress.  They  arrive  hours  before  the  time  fixed  for 
the  departure,  and  when  the  train  comes  up  they  pack 
themselves  like  eels  into  the  long  third-class  carriage,  until 
the  windows  bristle  with  protruding  heads  and  irrespon- 
sible arms.  Then,  perhaps,  when  all  are  stowed,  it  is  dis- 
covered that  one  of  the  party  is  missing.  More  shrieks, 
more  gestures,  more  vehement  discussion,  ending  with 
half  a  dozen  of  the  voyagers  uncoiling  from  the  heap  and 
throwing  themselves  out  upon  the  platform  to  wait  for 
the  absentee.  They  may  have  to  tarry  for  the  rest  of  the 
day,  for  Indian  trains  run  at  infrequent  intervals ;  but 
that  does  not  affect  their  spirits.  Time  is  of  no  great 
value  in  Asia,  and  the  native  is  good  at  waiting.  It  is  his 
favourite  recreation.  He  will  sit  for  hours  on  his  heels, 
with  his  hands  drooping  from  his  knees,  motionless,  doing 
nothing,  even  where  there  is  nothing  to  see.  Much  more 
is  he  inclined  to  loiter  at  so  agreeable  a  place  as  a  rail- 
way-station, where  there  is  always  something  to  observe, 
if  it  is  only  a  porter  lighting  a  lamp,  or  a  bullock  being 
inducted  to  a  cattle-truck. 


82  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

The  travelling  native  hardly  seems  to  have  grasped 
the  significance  of  the  time-table.  He  thinks  that  a 
train  starts  at  some  indefinite  and  uncertain  moment, 
probably  due  to  the  caprices  of  the  engine-driver,  and  he 
holds  that  it  is  well  to  be  prepared  for  emergencies.  So 
he  arrives  at  the  station  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night, 
and  proceeds  to  encamp  there  until  his  train  appears. 
If  it  is  timed  to  leave  in  the  morning,  it  is  quite  the  thing 
for  him  to  turn  up  vaguely  the  evening  before.  At  many 
places  there  are  regular  rest-rooms  or  enclosures  provided 
for  him ;  otherwise  he  makes  himself  comfortable  on  the 
platform  or  in  odd  corners  outside. 

In  the  very  early  hours  of  the  morning,  before  the  sun 
has  risen,  an  Indian  railway-station,  in  the  up-country 
districts,  is   rather   a  weird  place.     There  are  no  lamps 
alight ;  but  a  few  railway-officials  drift  about  shedding  a 
faint  yellowish  glow  from  their  hand-lanterns.     As  you 
move  cautiously  in  the  gloom,  among  heaps  of  piled-up 
luggage  and  goods,  you  discern  other  heaps  under  dim  white 
coverings,  generally  lying  in  pairs ;   one  heap  being  the 
native's  shapeless  bundle,  the  other  consisting  of  himself, 
equally  shapeless  beneath  his  blanket  or  cotton  shroud.    As 
the  day  draws  on  he  wakes  up  and  makes  his  way  to  the 
booking-office.     In  the  remoter  districts  he  has  not  always 
mastered  the  system  of  fixed  fares.     The  journey  strikes 
him  in  the  light  of  a  promising  opening  for  a  bargain. 
He  demands  his  *  et-tickett,'  and  when  the  babu  at  the 
window  tells  him  the  price  he  promptly  offers  half.     This, 
of  course,  is  rejected,  whereupon  he  goes  away  tranquilly, 
and  returns  in  an  hour  or  two  with  a  slightly  increased 
bid.     It  may  take  the  best  part  of  a  day  to  convince  him 
that  there  is  no  possibility  for  him  to  obtain  a  reduction 
in  the  official  rate. 

As  for  the  regulations  about  overcrowding  the  carriages, 
they  are,  so  far  as  my  observation  goes,  habitually  dis- 


ON  THE  LINE  83 

regarded :  which  is  not  wholly  the  fault  of  the  companies, 
but  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  travelling  native 
likes  being  in  a  throng,  and  does  not  really  enjoy  him- 
self unless  his  compartment  is  filled  far  in  excess  of  its 
proper  capacity.  If  there  is  no  seat  for  him,  he  squats 
contentedly  on  the  floor  or  on  his  bundles,  or  balances 
himself  precariously  against  doors  and  windows.  The 
passengers  seem  oddly  mixed,  and  represent  very  diverse 
sections  of  the  Indian  population.  In  one  third-class 
carriage  in  Eajputana  in  which  I  made  a  brief  pilgrim- 
age, my  fellow-travellers  included  a  good-looking  young 
Thakor,  or  small  squireen,  in  very  well-made  linen  riding- 
breeches  of  the  celebrated  '  Jodhpur  '  cut ;  two  or  three 
Marwari  traders,  in  their  peculiar  peaked  turbans ;  a  fat 
Hindu  merchant,  arrayed  in  a  sort  of  dressing-gown  of 
flowered  silk ;  a  Surat  man,  in  white  trousers,  light  tweed 
overcoat,  and  round  skull-cap,  who  talked  some  Eng- 
lish, and  was  probably  a  servant  to  one  of  the  first-class 
passengers ;  some  unkempt  farmers  or  drovers  redolent  of 
the  cowsheds,  with  long  sticks  ;  and  a  couple  of  women, 
very  dark  and  uninviting,  with  nose-rings  and  bright- 
coloured  mantillas.  Most  of  the  company  were  on 
excellent  terms  with  one  another,  and  chatted  familiarly, 
though  the  young  Thakor  talked  little,  and  the  women 
hardly  at  all. 

I  was  rather  surprised  to  find  that  a  considerable 
amount  of  eating  and  drinking  went  on  throughout  the 
journey.  At  every  station  hawkers  gathered  round,  bear- 
ing trays  laden  with  chupatties,  or  thin  wheaten  cakes, 
other  cakes  of  bajra,  or  millet,  various  kinds  of  sticky  and 
smeary  sweetmeats,  and  open  brown-paper  parcels,  con- 
taining, I  believe,  a  mixture  of  meal  and  sugar,  which 
seemed  to  be  in  request.  Several  of  the  passengers  were 
chewing  or  sucking  something  most  of  the  time,  such  as 
the   sweetmeats   aforesaid,   betel-nut,  of   which   the  red 


84  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

stain  was  plainly  visible  on  their  teeth  and  lips,  or  bits  of 
sugar-cane.  This  last  is  immensely  popular  in  most  parts 
of  India,  so  that  you  may  see  the  labourer  going  to  his 
work  with  a  long  stick  of  it  over  his  shoulder,  like  a  fish- 
ing-rod. But  the  great  demand  was  for  water,  with  which 
they  supplied  themselves  from  the  great  ewers  or  goatskins 
brought  round  at  the  stations.  The  water-bearers  are 
employed  by  the  railway  companies,  and  no  charge  is 
made  for  the  liquid.  Most  of  the  passengers  had  their 
own  brass  or  copper  pots;  others  made  a  cup  of  their 
two  hollowed  hands,  from  which  they  contrived  to  drink 
a  pint  or  so  of  water  without  spilling  a  drop.  At  intervals 
somebody  would  proceed  to  perform  his  ablutions,  sitting 
down  on  the  ground  in  front  of  the  train,  pouring  water 
over  his  face  and  neck,  and  operating  on  his  mouth,  with 
the  aid  of  a  fragment  of  split  cane,  and  with  much  tooth- 
rubbing  and  expectoration.  The  native  is  always  doing 
something  to  himself  with  water,  and  it  seldom  seems  to 
make  him  any  cleaner. 

I  tried  in  vain  to  reconcile  what  I  had  heard  of  the 
strictness  of  the  Hindu  caste  rules  with  this  promiscuous 
jumbling-up  of  persons  of  varied  status.  I  do  not  know 
what  would  have  been  the  result  if  I  had  touched  one  of 
the  eating  or  drinking  vessels,  but,  having  been  warned 
on  this  point,  I  took  care  not  to  do  so.  Among  themselves 
no  great  precautions  seemed  to  be  observed,  though  I 
noticed  that  one  or  two  of  the  passengers  neither  ate  nor 
drank  in  the  carriage,  but  took  their  refreshment,  during 
the  stoppages,  on  the  platform.  The  railways,  however, 
have  acted  as  a  great  solvent  of  caste  restrictions  in  India, 
and  I  believe  on  the  trains  it  is  generally  recognised  that 
the  strict  letter  of  the  rules  need  not  be  observed.  There 
are  carriages  set  apart  for  females,  but  it  is  quite  common 
to  see  women  travelling  in  the  general  compartments. 
Even  Mohammedan  women,  who  are  strictly  purdah,  have 


c  t  c  c  c 
o*  t  <    « 


C    C  C    *•< 


ON  THE  LINE  85 

yielded  to  the  innovation.  Hidden  under  the  burka,  or 
shapeless  round  upper  garment,  which  effectually  conceals 
all  feminine  charms,  they  will  take  long  journeys  in 
carriages  filled  with  men. 

It  is  another  example  of  the  adaptability  of  the  native 
when  his  own  comfort  and  convenience  are  involved.  It 
would  take  more  than  the  Brahman  and  the  moulvie 
nowadays  to  deprive  the  Indian,  utriusque  juris,  of  the 
pleasures  of  railway-travelling. 


86  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 


CHAPTER  VII 
MEDIAEVAL   INDIA 

Not  till  you  begin  to  travel  about  India  do  you  gain 
some  idea  of  its  size.  To  most  of  us  at  home  India  is  a 
country  like  another,  one  country  among  many.  We  talk 
of  India  as  we  might  talk  of  Italy  and  Spain,  of  *  seeing 
India  '  as  some  of  us  try  to  '  see  '  Switzerland  or  Portugal. 
I  suppose  our  geography-books  are  partly  responsible  for 
this  misapprehension ;  and  it  is  confirmed  by  the  map  of 
the  world,  drawn  ■  on  Mercator's  projection,'  which  delu- 
sive invention,  too  familiar  in  the  schoolroom,  colours 
all  our  notions  of  the  relative  size  of  different  portions 
of  the  earth's  surface.  On  Mercator's  projection,  the 
territories  near  the  Equator  are  unduly  shrunken,  and 
those  towards  the  Pole  unfairly  drawn  out.  India  looks 
somewhere  about  the  size  of  Sweden  and  Norway,  and 
appears  a  quite  insignificant  triangle  compared  with  the 
frozen  wastes  of  Siberia. 

But  when  you  have  been  but  a  little  while  in  Asia 
your  views  undergo  a  change.  You  appreciate  the  mean- 
ing of  that  shrewd  remark  of  a  great  Oriental  adminis- 
trator who  said  that  the  first  and  most  essential  fact  to 
be  learnt  about  India  is  that  there  is  no  such  country. 
There  is  no  such  country  as  India;  the  name  includes 
many  countries,  which  have  some  common  characteristics, 
it  is  true,  but  also  many  and  deep-seated  divergences. 
For  India  is  larger  than  all  Europe  without  Russia,  and  it 
has  a  greater  population,  and  as  many  varieties  of  climate, 


MEDIAEVAL    INDIA  87 

race,  creed,  and  custom.  We  do  not,  as  a  rule,  gene- 
ralise about  Europe ;  we  should  be  cautious  about  saying 
that  a  '  European  '  does  this  or  that,  or  has  such  and  such 
peculiarities.  We  know  that  the  Norwegian  is  a  European, 
and  so  also  is  the  Sicilian :  we  hesitate  before  framing 
sweeping  statements  meant  to  apply  equally  to  the  bur- 
gesses of  Aberdeen  and  the  peasants  of  Andalusia. 

Yet,  as  Sir  John  Strachey  observes,  Scotland  is 
more  like  Spain  than  Bengal  is  like  the  Punjab.  The 
mountaineer  of  the  Northern  Frontier  is  as  far,  physically 
and  morally,  from  the  Mysore  villager  as  the  Londoner 
is  from  the  Montenegrin.  *  European  civilisation  has 
grown  up  under  conditions  which  have  produced  a  larger 
measure  of  uniformity  than  has  been  reached  in  the 
countries  of  the  Indian  continent,  often  separated  from 
each  other  by  greater  distances,  by  greater  obstacles  to 
communication,  and  by  greater  differences  of  climate.  It 
is  probable  that  not  less  than  fifty  languages,  which  may 
rightly  be  called  separate,  are  spoken  in  India.  The 
diversities  of  religion  and  race  are  as  wide  in  India  as  in 
Europe,  and  political  catastrophes  have  been  as  frequent 
and  as  violent.  There  are  no  countries  in  civilised 
Europe  in  which  the  people  differ  so  much  as  the  man 
of  Madras  differs  from  the  Sikh,  and  the  languages  of 
Southern  India  are  as  unintelligible  in  Lahore  as  they 
would  be  in  London.  A  native  of  Calcutta  or  Bombay 
is  as  much  a  foreigner  in  Delhi  or  Peshawar  as  an 
Englishman  is  a  foreigner  in  Paris  or  Borne.' l 

North  and  south,  or  east  and  west,  you  can  travel  in 
a  straight  line  over  a  greater  distance  than  that  which 
separates  Charing  Cross  from  Constantinople  without 
quitting  the  territories  that  owe  allegiance  to  the 
Kaisar-i-Hind.     You  can  begin  at  the  foot  of  mountains 

1  Sir  John  Strachey,  India  :  its  Administration  and  Progress  (3rd  ed.), 
p.  3. 


88  A  VISION   OF   INDIA 

nearly  twice  the  height  of  Mont  Blanc,  in  a  region  where 
the  cold  of  winter  is  more  severe  than  that  of  Lapland, 
and  finish  your  journey  in  the  very,  heart  of  the  tropics, 
looking  out  towards  the  Equator  over  a  sea  of  changeless 
blue.  To  most  of  us  the  very  name  India  is  synonymous 
with  intense  heat  and  burning  sunlight ;  but  the  autumn 
tourist,  if  he  gets  up  to  Peshawar  or  to  the  Afghan  or 
Baluchistan  border,  will  endure  more  discomfort  from 
cutting  winds  and  frosty  mornings  than  any  he  is  likely 
to  suffer  from  excessive  warmth.  The  popular  idea  is 
that  the  people  of  India  live  mainly  on  rice  ;  but  there  are 
tens  of  millions  of  them  who  never  touch  that  cereal 
and  seldom  see  it.  All  general  statements  about  India 
must  be  accepted  with  due  regard  to  these  considerations. 
What  is  true  of  the  natural  and  geographical  conditions 
is  equally  true  of  the  human  product.  We  have  to  do 
with  a  sub-continent  which  includes  a  vast  number  of 
countries,  tribes,  states,  religions,  and  peoples,  at  various 
stages  of  development  and  progress. 

The  Eoyal  tour,  if  it  did  nothing  else,  should  have 
brought  home  to  Englishmen  the  exceeding  greatness 
of  the  heritage  which  has  been  gained  for  them  by 
valour,  foresight,  diplomacy,  and  good  luck.  The  Prince 
of  Wales  spent  some  three  weeks  in  visiting  the  feuda- 
tory princes  of  Central  India  and  Kajputana.  The  public 
at  home  learnt  that  he  was  passing  a  day  or  two  with 
Holkar  at  Indore,  three  days  with  the  Maharaja  of 
Udaipur,  two  at  Jaipur,  five  with  Scindia  at  Gwalior,  and 
so  on.  A  few  telegrams  and  casual  references  in  the  news- 
papers, and  one  ruling  chief  is  left,  and  another  has  his 
turn.  But  anybody  who  looks  up  his  atlas  and  his 
gazetteers  will  discover  that  each  of  these  '  petty ' 
sovereigns,  who  individually  count  for  so  little  in  the 
great  checker-board  of  Indian  administration,  would  else- 
where be  reckoned  a  somewhat  important  personage.    We 


MEDIEVAL  INDIA  89 

do  not  take  very  much  notice  of  them  in  England  :  Simla 
is  polite  to  them,  but  it  has  many  other  things  to  think  of. 
Yet  each  of  these  princes  rules  a  territory  equal  to  that  of 
a  second-rate  European  kingdom,  and  he  has  his  court, 
his  army,  his  feudal  aristocracy,  and  perhaps  a  million 
or  two  of  subjects.  Indore  is  quite  a  minor  State,  but  it 
is  larger  than  the  Kingdom  of  Saxony.  Jaipur  covers 
more  space  than  either  Holland  or  Belgium,  and  it  is 
more  populous  than  Greece.  Gwalior  is  about  the  size 
of  Scotland,  and  it  has  nearly  as  many  people.  And  if 
we  go  a  little  farther  south,  to  the  Dekhan,  we  find  the 
Nizam  ruling  an  area  as  extensive  as  that  of  Great 
Britain,  with  nearly  twelve  millions  of  inhabitants.  All 
these  principalities  are  held  in  suzerainty  to  the  Imperial 
throne,  and  they  exist  on  sufferance  and  by  our  goodwill 
and  pleasure ;  and  all  together  the  whole  of  them  do 
not  include  more  than  a  fifth  of  the  three  hundred 
millions  of  human  beings  who  are  counted  in  among  the 
inhabitants  of  *  India.' 

But  it  is  the  diversity  as  much  as  the  magnitude  of 
the  great  Empire  which  impresses  the  imagination.  It  is 
a  good  object-lesson  to  pass  swiftly,  or  as  swiftly  as  the 
formidable  distances  permit,  from  Bombay  to  the  land  of 
the  Eajputs.  The  change  is  quite  as  striking  as  that 
which  would  be  felt  in  travelling  through  from  the 
Adriatic  to  the  Baltic.  In  the  coast  port  the  visitor 
from  Europe,  even  if  he  comes  in  the  autumn,  is  pretty 
certain  to  complain  of  the  heat.  He  finds  himself 
plunged  into  a  moist  and  sticky  warmth  which  makes 
him  perspire  as  if  he  were  in  the  hot  room  of  a  Turkish 
bath.  But  on  the  upland  plains  he  is  in  a  more  vitalising 
atmosphere.  The  sun  burns  fiercely  at  midday,  even  in 
the  cool  season ;  and  in  the  summer,  before  the  mon- 
soon, it  flames  with  scorching  fury,  parching  the  soil 
into  brown  waste  or  blinding  white  dust.     Yet  the  air  is 


90  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

dry  and  bracing,  there  is  a  snap  in  it  at  its  worst,  and 
even  when  pitiless  it  is  not  enervating.  For  the  luxuriant 
greenery  of  the  lower  Ghats  we  have  exchanged  the  bare 
plains,  the  baked  deserts,  and  the  rugged  kopjes,  of  the 
tableland.  Instead  of  the  busy  merchants  and  traders  of 
Bombay,  the  pushing  Parsis,  the  alert  baniyas,  the  foxy- 
faced  intriguing  Mahrattas,  we  find  a  race  of  hunters, 
cattle-drovers,  shepherds,  and  horsemen,  square-headed, 
square-shouldered,  and  upstanding,  burly  as  Yorkshire- 
men,  and  independent  as  the  farmers  of  the  Lothians. 

At  Jaipur,  some  friends  and  I  borrowed  a  couple  of 
tongas  from  the  transport  train,  which  is  the  Maharaja's 
sensible  contribution  to  the  Imperial  Service  Corps,  to 
drive  to  the  ruins  of  the  old  royal  city  of  Amber.  When 
we  got  back  we  offered  one  of  the  drivers  a  gratuity ; 
but  he  declined  to  take  it,  pointing  to  a  medal  he  wore 
and  murmuring  something  about  the  Maharaja.  He 
was  a  soldier,  and  a  servant  of  his  king,  and  he  did  not 
need  a  present  for  doing  his  work.  The  custodian  of 
the  old  palace  was  equally  dignified.  He,  too,  explained 
that  he  was  in  the  Maharaja's  service,  and  did  not  wish 
to  be  'tipped'  for  showing  a  little  attention.  But  the 
tips  would  have  assuredly  been  accepted  in  Bombay,  or, 
for  that  matter,  in  most  other  parts  of  India  and  the 
world.  Perhaps  a  Scottish  Highlander,  of  the  old  strain, 
would  have  refused  them  too. 

It  is  of  the  Highlanders  that  the  Bajputs  remind  one 
in  many  ways,  even  including  physique,  though  the  Indian 
sun  has  tanned  them  brown,  and  darkened  their  eyes  and 
hair.  They  are  raw-boned,  wiry,  and  muscular,  with 
something  of  the  Caledonian  build.  As  I  stood  looking  at 
a  highly  dignified  Rajput  chief,  who  was  entertaining  us 
in  his  palace,  I  thought  that  with  his  robes  and  turban 
exchanged  for  a  bonnet  and  kilt,  and  his  black  ragged 
beard  turned  a  sandy  red,  he  might  very  well  pass  for 


MEDLEVAL  INDIA  91 

some  patriarch  from  the  moors  and  deer  forests,  a  great 
territorial  magnate,  a  keen  sportsman,  shrewd,  kindly, 
domineering,  and  quick-tempered.  The  racial  affinity 
may  be  nearer  than  we  suspect.  The  learned  Lieut.- 
Colonel  James  Tod,  who  wrote  The  Annals  and  Anti- 
quities of  Bajasthan,  as  long  ago  as  the  time  when 
William  IV.  was  King,  holds  that  the  Kajputs  are  of 
Scythian  origin,  and  modern  scholars  are  inclined  to 
accept  this  conclusion.  Now  the  Celts  and  the  Scythians 
are  thought  by  some  authorities  to  have  had  close  family 
connections,  in  the  early  days  when  the  fighting  branches 
of  the  great  '  Aryan  '  stock  were  roaming  Europe  and 
Asia  to  find  a  permanent  home. 

"Whatever  they  may  be,  the  Kajputs  of  Kajputana1 
are  very  different  from  the  majority  of  the  peoples  who 
inhabit  the  plains  of  Hindustan  and  the  Dekhan.  They 
are  a  northern  people  with  many  of  the  northern  charac- 
teristics. At  some  remote  period  they  came  down  from 
beyond  the  barrier  mountains  and  settled  in  the  Trans- 
Indus  region  and  on  the  upper  portion  of  the  great 
Gangetic  plain.  In  the  early  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era  they  seemed  likely  to  found  a  great  empire.  But  they 
were  a  small  people,  in  point  of  numbers,  and  they  were 
always  divided  among  themselves.  Like  the  Celts  once 
more,  they  have  never  shown  a  capacity  for  national  or 
political  unity.  They  were  tribesmen  and  clansmen, 
devoted  to  their  chiefs,  but  incapable  of  combination  on  a 
large  scale.     The  Mohammedans,  more   numerous,   and 

1  There  are  of  course  plenty  of  Kajputs  outside  the  Kajputana  terri- 
tories. The  name  is  not  that  of  a  nation — there  are  no  nations  in  India — 
but  that  of  a  caste.  The  Rajputs  are  the  supposed  descendants  of  the  old 
warrior  clan,  the  most  influential  and  aristocratic  of  all  except  the 
Brahmans  ;  and  like  the  latter  they  are  found  all  over  the  Peninsula,  the 
name  having  been  freely  adopted  by  many  tribes  and  septs,  who  have 
gradually  risen  in  the  social  scale,  and  in  the  process  of  their  ascent  have 
ascribed  to  themselves  an  origin  for  which  there  is  no  historical  founda- 
tion. 


92  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

directed  by  leaders  who  were  statesmen  and  organisers  as 
well  as  soldiers,  gradually  pushed  them  away  into  the 
deserts  and  the  arid  sandy  tracts  which  lie  south  and 
east  of  the  great  rivers.  Here  the  Eajput  chiefs  founded 
their  kingdoms,  established  their  capitals,  Jodhpur, 
Chittor,  Amber,  Boondi,  Alwar,  built  their  white- walled 
palaces,  beautified  them  with  enamel-work  and  mosaics 
and  painted  ceilings,  took  their  pleasure  in  marble 
summer-houses  by  cool  tanks  and  artificial  lakes,  hunted 
the  wild  boar,  the  tiger,  and  the  sambhur,  and  ruled 
precariously  over  turbulent  feudatories,  each  with  his 
own  following  of  more  or  less  devoted  subjects. 

They  were  great  builders  and  gardeners  and  founders 
of  Hindu  temples,  these  Eajput  kings,  and  they  were 
always  fighting — sometimes  with  the  Moghuls,  sometimes 
with  their  rebel  barons,  often  with  one  another.  When 
the  generals  and  proconsuls  of  John  Company  took  to 
the  work  of  pacifying  India  in  earnest  in  the  later 
eighteenth  century,  the  Eajput  princes  were  in  a  bad 
way.  They  had  been  so  weakened  by  their  contests  with 
the  Moslem  and  their  internal  dissensions  that  they 
were  making  little  head  against  the  Mahratta  raiders, 
who  were  sweeping  over  the  country  like  locusts.  Thus 
it  fell  that  to  Eajputana  the  English  came  not  as  con- 
querors but  deliverers.  The  princes  accepted  our  supre- 
macy without  reluctance ;  and,  for  the  most  part,  they 
have  shown  themselves  loyal  and  steady  supporters  of 
the  Power  which  has  secured  them  in  their  ancestral 
thrones  and  rendered  it  possible  for  them  to  maintain 
their  independence  and  identity  without  perpetual 
conflict. 

So  all  Eajputana  remains  to-day  outside  the  direct 
control  of  the  Indian  Government,  and  it  is  in  some 
respects  the  most  characteristically  Oriental  and  un- 
changed  portion  of  the  Empire,  redolent  of   a  not  un- 


(    C    (    c    f 
(    C    C    C    ( 


C  c 

«    o  •  C  C  •  t  c   fc(- 

c  c  c  c  c       c  c  c  «c 


c  c  c  c  c 
c  c  o« 


MEDIAEVAL   INDIA  93 

welcome  flavour  of  medievalism.  It  is  ruled  by  its  own 
chiefs,  some  of  whom  represent  famous  royal  dynasties 
of  venerable  antiquity.  With  the  old  laws  and  customs 
we  have  interfered  no  more  than  is  necessary ;  the 
Maharajas  are  still  the  heads  of  a  feudal  hierarchy ;  and 
they  live  in  state,  in  the  midst  of  a  horde  of  retainers  and 
privileged  hangers-on,  as  an  Oriental  monarch  likes  to  do. 
They  have  their  cavalry,  and  their  batteries  of  artillery, 
and  stout  regiments  of  infantry,  armed  with  flint-locks 
or  Enfield  muzzle-loaders ;  they  keep  their  elephants, 
and  studs  of  horses  and  camels,  and  menageries  of  wild 
beasts,  and  their  household  guards  with  ancient  swords 
and  halberts  and  coats  of  mail.  Each  has  a  British 
Eesident  to  keep  him  in  order ;  but  the  Eajput  princes 
are  as  a  rule  honest  and  fairly  capable  rulers,  and  there 
is  no  desire  to  curtail  their  freedom  of  action,  though  a 
little  pressure  has  sometimes  to  be  put  upon  them  to 
organise  famine  relief  properly,  and  to  encourage  educa- 
tion and  see  after  the  making  of  roads. 

It  is  an  old-world  interesting  land,  full  of  primitive 
ways,  the  ways  of  a  people  of  herdsmen,  horsemen,  and 
soldiers.  Fighting  is  in  the  Eajput  blood,  though  peace 
has  long  reigned,  and  it  is  seldom  that  a  shot  is  now  fired 
in  anger.  Now  and  again  we  may  allow  a  Maharaja  to 
levy  execution  upon  a  recalcitrant  Sardar,  or  to  coerce  re- 
bellious aboriginal  Bhils  with  fire  and  sword.  But  the 
tradition  remains ;  a  Eajput  still  clings  to  his  weapons 
and  does  not  like  to  move  without  them.  As  you  travel 
through  the  country  you  may  see  the  peasant,  going  to  his 
fields  in  the  morning  with  his  curved  scimitar  hugged 
close  under  his  cotton  robe,  or  driving  his  bullocks  with  a 
long  matchlock  over  his  shoulder.  They  have  something 
of  the  bearing  of  warriors,  their  gestures  are  free  and 
animated,  they  are  great  talkers,  as  voluble  and  noisy 
in  a  crowd  as  any  folks  I  have  seen ;  and  they  are  good- 


94  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

humoured  and  easy  to  deal  with.  The  Bajput  gentleman 
is  frank  and  pleasant,  a  good  sportsman,  a  manly  and 
genial  companion.  He  takes  kindly  to  the  English  ways, 
is  pretty  nearly  the  best  polo-player  in  India,  and  may 
be  seen  sometimes  at  Kanelagh  and  Hurlingham. 

But  will  the  Eajputs  keep  their  stamina  and  virile 
virtues  now  that  the  fighting  days  are  over  ?  The  young 
Thakors,  who  might  have  been  leading  their  men  in 
the  battle  and  the  march,  pass  their  lives  in  a  rather 
supine  inactivity,  relieved  by  sport  and  by  quarrels  with 
their  liege  lord.  Some  who  know  them  tell  us  that 
they  are  less  tenacious,  less  energetic,  less  masculine 
altogether,  than  their  fathers  before  them.  We  used  to 
get  many  Eajputs  in  our  Indian  army,  and  have  still  good 
companies  of  them.  But  the  supply  is  falling  off:  the 
younger  men,  it  seems,  have  lost  some  of  their  taste  for 
the  military  life,  and  the  whole  population  has  been  hard 
hit  by  the  famine  and  the  plague.  The  future  of  the 
race,  and  that  of  their  barren  picturesque  country,  is  one 
of  the  problems  of  India — one  of  the  many  unsolved 
enigmas  which  meet  us  at  every  turn. 


95 


CHAPTEK  VIII 
SOME  BAJPUT  CAPITALS 
THE    CITY  OF   THE   ENCHANTED  LAKES 

The    older   un-Occidentalised    Bajputana,    which    still 
clings  to  its  feudalism  and  medievalism,  finds   its  most 
favourable  example  in  the  State  of  Mewar ;  for  the  ruler 
of  that  territory,  a  dignified,  upright,  and  conscientious 
prince,  thoroughly  loyal  to  the  Empire,  is,  nevertheless, 
a  steady  champion  of  Hindu  conservatism,  who  dislikes 
modern  innovations,  admits  them  grudgingly,  and  does 
his  best  to  keep  his  country  and  his  people  to  the  older 
ways.     The  bluest  blood  of  India  runs  in  his  veins  :  he 
can   trace    his   lineage    back    authentically   nearly   two 
thousand  years,  and  mythically  he  goes  further  still,  for 
he  is  the  head  of  the  Sesodia  dynasty,  the  descendants  of 
the  Sun  God,  who  have  never  sullied  the  purity  of  their  race 
by  giving  a  daughter  in  marriage  to  the  Mohammedans. 
For  this  reason,  his  Highness  the  Maharana,  Sir  Fateh 
Singh  Bahadur,  G.C.S.I.,  is  regarded  with  reverence  all 
over  the  Hindu  world ;  and  partly  on  this  account,  and 
partly  because  he   is    an    excellent   man,   who   governs 
wisely  and  honestly  according  to  his  lights,  we  interfere 
with  him  as  little  as  possible,  and  allow  him  to  retain 
in  being  many  vestiges  of  the  past,  which  more  progres- 
sive rajas   have  been    induced    to    abandon.      To    the 
student  of  Eastern  institutions,  of  sociology,  of  Asiatic 
history,  and  Indian  politics,  much  fruitful  material  lies 
to  hand   in   Mewar   State.      But   that  student  must  be 


96  A   VISION  OF   INDIA 

*  more  or  less  than  man  '  if  he  can  keep  his  mind  on 
these  matters  during  the  first  day  of  his  sojourn  in  the 
distracting  city  of  Udaipur.  You  cannot  easily  make 
statistical  observations  in  Fairyland. 

Conceive  a  rugged  mountain  country,  of  brown,  bare, 
jagged  peaks,  and  scarped,  serrated  hills ;  and  in  a  broad 
valley  or  basin  of  this  desolate  land  place  a  chain  of  still  and 
silvery  lakes,  with  palms  and  plantains,  and  blossoming 
wisteria,  and  cactus,  and  spiny  jungle-grass,  breaking  the 
sandy  hummocks  in  a  belt  of  verdure  at  the  edges  of  the 
pools.  And  plant,  by  the  margin  of  the  largest  lake,  and 
on  the  lowest  ridges  of  the  upland,  a  city  of  snowy  palaces 
and  gleaming  towers  and  fretted  minarets,  and  the  great 
carved  blunt  pyramids  of  temples — a  city  which  leans 
over  the  flood  in  long  stretches  of  crenellated  rampart  and 
jutting  bastion,  or  opens  from  it  in  arabesqued  gateways, 
which  reveal  narrow  streets,  gay  with  many-hued  life, 
and  backed  by  a  sheet  of  turquoise  sky.  It  is  a  city  of 
wharves  and  bridges,  like  Venice,  and  tiers  of  marble  steps, 
leading  down  to  the  lapping  water,  and  balconies,  with 
delicate  domes  and  threadlike  mullions  and  shafts  of 
embroidered  ivory  hung  from  high  white  walls.  Stud 
the  surface  of  the  lake  with  islands,  and  make  these  visions 
of  marble  porticoes  and  cupolas  and  trellis-work  and 
terraces,  with  the  plumes  of  the  palm  and  the  broad 
green  pennants  of  the  plantain  waving  above  them  ;  and 
let  castles  and  forts  and  shrines  dot  the  mountain-sides, 
or  rest  like  tiaras  on  the  frowning  headlands.  Imagine 
all  this,  and  you  may  get  some  faint  idea  of  the  earthly 
Paradise  which  the  Children  of  the  Sun  created  for  them- 
selves when  the  Moghuls  sacked  their  ancient  capital  and 
drove  them  to  find  a  home  and  resting-place  behind  the 
desert  hills. 

Udai  Singh  and  his  successors  had  a  sense  of  the  fit- 
ness of  things.     Perhaps  they  were  not  great  designers  ; 


SOME  RAJPUT  CAPITALS  97 

I  do  not  know  that  there  is  a  really  fine  piece  of  architec- 
ture in  Udaipur,  and  whenever  you  pry  into  the  details 
of  the  buildings  you  are  met  with  something  petty  and 
insignificant,  with  silly  pepper-pot  turrets,  domes  with 
poor  lines  and  bad  curves,  and  cemented  verandahs  that 
look  mean  at  close  quarters.  Put  all  this  confectionery 
under  a  dull  sky  and  in  a  leaden  northern  atmosphere, 
and  it  might  seem  common  and  shabby.  But  in  this 
fine  air,  picked  out  against  the  monotone  of  enamelled 
blue,  it  is  in  its  place.  The  old  palace  is  an  immense 
building,  of  high,  blank,  and  nearly  windowless,  wall, 
which  dominates  the  lake  from  its  lofty  terrace ;  but 
behind  this  massive  screen  one  catches  a  glimpse  of  pin- 
nacles and  roofs  in  creamy  marble,  so  graceful  and  so  light 
that  you  almost  think  they  must  wave  and  quiver  with 
the  breeze. 

The  palace  is  a  town  of  itself,  so  vast  that  the 
Maharana's  stables,  with  all  their  horses  and  grooms,  can 
be  stowed  away  among  the  foundations  of  the  great  con- 
taining wall.  The  newer  portion  of  the  palace,  built  in 
the  last  century,  with  its  courts  and  fountains  and  re- 
ception-rooms, occupies  a  mere  corner  of  the  huge  fabric, 
a  corner  happily  which  does  not  too  roughly  depart  from 
the  style  of  the  remainder.  Seen  from  the  lake,  the 
palace  is  always  the  centre  of  the  picture  as  it  should  be, 
standing,  impassive  and  serene,  with  the  clustering  town 
at  its  knees,  the  green  gardens  at  its  feet,  and  the 
castellated  brown  heights,  like  kneeling  elephants  with 
their  howdahs,  shutting  off  the  enchanted  valley  from 
the  world  beyond. 

It  would  be  hard  to  say  at  what  hour  of  the  twenty- 
four  Udaipur  is  at  its  best.  Is  it  when  the  touch  of 
dawn  turns  the  hills  to  gold  and  flushes  the  white  walls 
and  cold  marbles  with  the  rose  of  life?  Or  is  it  that 
magic  moment  just  before  sunset,  when  the  heat-haze 

H 


98  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

rises  like  thin  smoke  over  the  ridges,  and  when  all  the 
foreground,  lake  and  town  and  islands,  swims  in  a  bath 
of  thin  and  luminous  azure?  One  has  seen  it  at  night, 
and  on  that  special  night  when  the  Maharana  clothed 
it  in  golden  light  in  honour  of  his  Eoyal  guests.  Illu- 
minations are,  as  a  rule,  rather  vulgar  affairs  ;  but  I  think 
all  illuminations  henceforth  must  seem  cheap  and  tawdry 
to  those  who  remember  that  November  evening  on  the 
terraces  at  Udaipur.  Here  there  were  no  electric  arcs, 
with  their  cold  and  steel-like  beam,  no  incandescent 
lamps,  with  hard  unwinking  stare,  no  coloured  lanterns 
in  garish  green  and  red.  Nothing  was  used  but  the 
common  Eastern  butty,  the  true  '  Light  of  Asia,'  a  mere 
earthenware  saucer,  with  a  shred  of  cotton-wick  and 
a  tiny  pool  of  oil.  These  humble  nightlights  were  set 
by  the  thousand  and  the  ten  thousand,  outlining  every- 
thing with  a  tender  palpitating  glow,  as  if  streams  and 
runlets  of  lambent  flame  were  slowly  trickling  along 
every  wall  and  pinnacle  and  projection,  by  the  sides  of 
buildings,  and  down  the  shafts  of  columns.  The  islands 
mirrored  themselves  in  the  lake  in  temples  and  palaces  of 
softened  fire ;  the  forts  flickered  like  giant  fireflies  on  the 
distant  hills.  It  was  Fairyland — with  the  elfin  lamps 
alight. 

When  you  are  recovered  from  your  first  ecstasy  at  the 
mere  outward  form  and  aspect  of  Udaipur,  and  you  come 
to  know  it  familiarly  and  to  move  about  its  streets  and 
courts,  you  find  it  more  delightful  still.  You  are  filled 
with  a  strange  sense  at  once  of  novelty  and  reminiscence. 
You  may  go  down  to  the  lake-side,  and  there,  on  the 
broad  steps  of  the  palace  itself,  under  the  embossed  and 
fretted  arches  of  the  gateway,  you  may  see  the  women 
filling  their  water-pots  at  sunrise  and  evening:  pots  of 
gleaming  brass  and  copper,  that  go  dripping  up  the  steps, 
or  great  red  earthen  chatties,  balanced  on  dusky  heads, 


SOME   RAJPUT  CAPITALS  99 

under  veils  of  purple  or  crimson,  and  held  in  place  by 
a  single  curved  brown  arm.  You  can  look  over  the  low 
wall  into  the  square  arena  of  sand,  with  the  circular 
stone  pedestal  in  the  middle,  where  the  King  has  his  wild- 
beast  fights  on  certain  state  occasions  ;  or  you  may  stroll 
down  to  the  bottom  end  of  the  lake,  and  see  the  King's 
wild  boars  fed,  and  the  King's  tigers  and  black  bears 
ramping  at  their  bars.  Walk  down  the  narrow  dusty 
street,  through  the  Hathi  Pal,  the  Gate  of  the  Elephants, 
past  the  great  Temple  of  Jaggernath,  and  by  the  Sarai, 
or  caravanserai,  where  camels  and  bullocks  and  squealing 
stallions  are  tethered  all  over  the  open  courtyard. 

Peer  into  the  rows  of  dim  little  booths  as  you  pass. 
Here  is  the  armourer  at  his  work,  and  the  goldsmith,  and 
the  man  who  puts  spots  and  borders  of  silver  tinsel  on 
the  cotton  saris.  The  money-changer  sits  at  his  door 
with  his  scales  and  measures  and  his  little  heaps  of  coin ; 
if  you  give  him  a  quarter  of  a  rupee,  which  is  fourpence, 
he  will  fill  both  your  hands  with  irregular  square-shaped 
bits  of  copper,  that  represent  the  small  currency  of  the 
Maharana's  realm.  A  huge  Brahminy  bull  wanders  by, 
none  making  him  afraid,  for  he  can  nose  into  what  stalls 
and  baskets  he  pleases,  and  is  a  licensed  plunderer  and 
drone.  And  here  is  the  man  whom  the  King  delights  to 
honour,  resplendent  in  silk  and  cloth  of  gold,  with  his 
runners  before  him  to  clear  the  way;  here  a  young 
cavalier,  riding  down  the  street  with  his  falcon  perched 
upon  his  gloved  wrist ;  here  a  Eajput  noble,  in  helmet  and 
crest,  with  a  hauberk  of  chain-mail  descending  over  his 
shoulders,  followed  by  his  knot  of  armed  retainers  with 
long  spears  and  rusty  scimitars.  In  the  cool  of  the 
evening  you  may  see  many  people  walking  upon  the  flat 
roofs  of  the  houses,  even  as  King  David  walked  when  his 
eye  lighted  upon  the  wife  of  Uriah  the  Hittite ;  you  may, 
perchance,   come   upon   Jezebel,   with  her  head   tired, 

ii  2 


100  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

looking  out  from  an  upper  window.  After  all,  we  are 
on  familiar  soil.  We  have  come  far  from  the  world  of 
the  twentieth  century.  But  we  are  close  to  countries 
which  have  been  travelled  ground  to  most  of  us  at  some 
period  of  our  lives.  We  are  in  the  land  of  the  Bible 
and  the  land  of  the  Bomances. 


JODHPUR   THE   MEDIEVAL 

Away  in  the  western  corner  of  the  Bajputana  region 
lies  the  kingdom  of  Marwar.  It  is  one  of  our  *  petty ' 
subject  states,  only  about  the  size  of  Ireland  ;  most  of  it 
dry  sand,  with  great  conical  rock  masses,  eight  hundred  to 
a  thousand  feet  high,  rising  out  of  the  plain.  On  the 
eastern  edge  there  is  a  huge  brine  marsh,  where  you  may 
see  tons  and  tons  of  glistening  salt  piled  up  in  hillocks  as 
you  pass  by  on  the  railway ;  through  the  western  slice 
runs  the  river  Luni,  which  loses  itself  in  the  porous  soil 
in  summer,  but  in  the  autumn  overflows  the  land  in 
a  fertilising  inundation,  and  enables  heavy  crops  of  barley 
and  wheat  and  millet  to  be  reaped.  But,  unlike  the  Nile, 
the  Luni  is  capricious  and  irregular  in  its  action.  It 
depends  upon  the  rainfall,  as  indeed  does  Bajputana  in 
general  even  more  than  the  rest  of  India.  With  any- 
thing over  ten  inches  of  rain,  the  country  is  green  for 
a  few  weeks  and  prosperous  for  the  year.  But  in  the 
season  of  1905  the  fall  had  been  less  than  two  inches,  the 
country  was  bare  and  brown,  even  beyond  its  wont,  the 
people  were  scattering  into  other  districts,  and  for  those 
that  remained  famine-relief  camps  were  being  prepared. 

Life  is  not  easy  in  Marwar ;  which  is  perhaps  a  reason 
why  its  people  are  vigorous,  alert,  and  energetic,  beyond 
the  average  of  Asiatics.  The  Marwaris  are  the  best 
native  bankers  and  retail  dealers  in  India,  and  they  are  to 


<C(t 
C  O  •  f 

•  ••« 

c  c  c  c 


SOME   RAJPUT  CAPITALS  101 

be  found  in  Calcutta  and  most  other*  great*  cities  a'll  oyer 
the  Peninsula,  pushing  their  trade,  and  'for  the  nicfets  part 
doing  well  at  it.  The  bazaars  of  Jodhpur  and  Bikaner 
are  full  of  tall  houses,  with  carved  fronts,  which  are  the 
homes  of  Marwari  merchanst,  who  have  made  money  in 
the  distant  haunts  of  commerce,  and  have  come  back  to 
spend  it  among  their  own  people. 

The  territory  belongs  to  the  Eahtors,  the  great  fight- 
ing clan  of  the  Eajputs,  of  whom  the  Maharaja  of 
Jodhpur  is  the  chief.  They  are  of  the  '  Solar  race,'  and 
claim  descent  from  Eama,  like  the  Sessodia  of  Udaipur, 
their  age-long  rivals.  Coming  down  from  the  north  seven 
centuries  ago,  the  horse-loving  Eahtors  settled  on  these 
breezy,  sun-dried,  dusty  steppes,  subdued  the  native 
inhabitants,  and  formed  a  powerful  little  state,  too  small 
to  become  an  empire,  but  large  enough  to  play  the  lead- 
ing part  in  the  turbulent  history  of  Eajputana,  which  so 
singularly  resembled  that  of  Central  Europe  in  the  early 
middle  ages.  Unfortunately  there  was  no  Eajput  Charle- 
magne, no  Pope,  no  Holy  Eoman  Empire,  to  give  unity  to 
the  loose  collection  of  principalities  and  feudal  baronies. 
Marwar  was  always  quarrelling  with  Mewar,  and  the 
Moghuls  and  the  Mahrattas  made  prey  of  both,  till  the 
English  came  and  brought  peace  to  the  land. 

A  few  years  ago  Jodhpur  was  better  known  in  Eng- 
land than  most  Indian  native  capitals.  The  late  Maharaja 
Jeswant  Singh  had  the  good  sense  to  appoint  as  his 
Prime  Minister  his  brother,  that  popular  and  picturesque 
Eajput  cavalier,  Sir  Pertab  Singh,  who  is  a  distinguished 
and  welcome  visitor  at  Windsor  and  Buckingham  Palace 
and  at  Eanelagh  and  Hurlingham.  To  see  the  Maharaja 
of  Idar  on  a  horse,  to  see  him  in  white  coat  and  cserulean 
turban  as  colonel  of  the  dashing  corps  of  Imperial  Cadets, 
to  see  him  in  his  shirt-sleeves  on  the  polo-ground,  is  to 
set  eyes  on  as  fine  a  figure  of  a  native  gentleman  and 


102  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

soldier  as  dJ  Iadia  can  produce.  Sir  Pertab  Singh 
brought  Jodhpur  forward  in  many  ways.  He  induced 
Sir  Swinton  Jacob  to  give  his  services  to  the  state  as 
architect  and  engineer,  and  commissioned  him  to  build 
a  set  of  handsome  law  courts  and  public  offices,  designed 
with  admirable  taste  after  the  old  Indian  fashion.  He 
cultivated  the  English  and  he  cultivated  the  horse. 

Visitors  of  standing  were  always  welcome  in  Jodh- 
pur,  where  they  were  given  pigs  to  stick,  Arabs  or 
thoroughbreds  to  ride,  and  champagne  to  drink.  The 
Jodhpur  racing-stables  were  famous  all  over  India,  and 
the  Jodhpur  colours  frequently  caught  the  judge's  eye. 
The  Jodhpur  polo-team  was  trained  to  the  highest  point 
of  perfection,  with  state  aid  in  the  shape  of  enormous 
subsidies  for  the  purchase  of  ponies,  so  that  it  held  the 
championship  of  India  till  it  lost  the  Cup  in  the  final 
round  of  the  great  Delhi  Durbar  contest. 

In  its  enthusiasm  for  polo  Jodhpur  was  not  alone. 
During  the  last  few  years  the  game  has  become  a  passion 
in  some  of  the  native  states,  and  sporting  Maharajas  were 
led  by  it  into  extravagances  which  called  for  the  inter- 
vention of  the  Government  of  India.  The  state  treasuries 
were  depleted  in  order  that  the  local  teams  might  be 
mounted  on  the  best  ponies  that  money  could  secure, 
such  ponies  as  no  British  regimental  club  in  India  could 
afford  to  purchase.  In  one  case  at  least,  a  very  few 
years  ago,  skill  on  the  polo-ground  was  the  sure  avenue 
to  court  favour;  and  an  active  sowar  or  non-commis- 
sioned officer  who  made  a  brilliant  run  or  hit  a  difficult 
goal,  under  the  eye  of  his  sovereign,  might  be  rewarded 
with  the  command  of  a  regiment  or  assigned  the  revenues 
of  a  village. 

The  polo  at  Jodhpur  is  as  good  as  ever ;  but  in  other 
respects  the  sporting  glory  of  the  state  is  a  little  tarnished. 
Sir  Pertab  Singh  has  given  up  the  Premiership,  and  con- 


SOME   RAJPUT  CAPITALS  103 

fines  himself  to  English  society  and  the  government  of  his 
minute  principality  of  Idar.  The  racing-stud  and  other 
luxuries  were  found  too  expensive  for  the  state,  which 
drifted  into  financial  confusion,  and  is  now  passing 
through  a  course  of  retrenchment  and  reform  under 
severe  Government-of-India  tutelage.  The  ambitions  of 
the  Eahtors  are  to  some  extent  satisfied  by  the  Jodhpur 
Lancers,  which  is  one  of  the  most  satisfactory  Imperial 
Service  corps  on  the  register.  In  this  fine  regiment  the 
poor  gentleman  of  Kajputana  finds  a  career  and  an  occu- 
pation. It  suits  him  as  well  as  the  Black  Watch  suited 
the  Highland  clansman  after  the  break-up  of  1745. 
Soldiering  is  his  hereditary  profession,  and  here  he  can 
devote  himself  to  it  with  credit  and  to  the  common 
advantage.  In  the  regiment  he  meets  his  comrades  ;  the 
officers  are  the  nobles  and  feudal  landowners  of  his  own 
country.  An  Imperial  Service  corps  provides  its  local 
colonel  and  staff ;  the  only  British  officer  is  the  Inspector, 
who  is  appointed  from  the  headquarters  of  the  Indian 
Army,  and  is  responsible  for  seeing  that  the  proper 
standard  of  efficiency  is  maintained. 

The  entire  system,  which  was  instituted  by  Lord 
Dufferin,  is  a  splendid  outlet  for  the  energy  and  military 
instincts  of  the  fighting  races  of  India,  and  it  gratifies  the 
national  pride  of  the  people  and  the  legitimate  vanity 
of  the  Princes,  who  are  allowed  to  have  this  small, 
modern,  well-drilled,  perfectly  equipped  force,  as  well  as 
their  own  miscellaneous  armies  with  obsolete  rifles  and 
travestied  British  uniforms.  Perhaps  the  discipline  of 
even  the  Jodhpur  Lancers  and  the  Bhopal  Lancers  is 
not  quite  what  it  would  be  if  they  were  converted  (as 
some  military  precisians  would  like  to  convert  them) 
into  regular  regiments  of  the  Native  Indian  Army,  with 
a  proper  proportion  of  European  officers.  But  it  would 
be  bad  policy  to  purchase  this   advantage  by  dealing  a 


104  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

blow  at  local  sentiment  and  national  esprit  de  corps. 
We  can  be  content  for  the  present  with  having  found 
an  opening  for  the  pride  of  race  and  warlike  aptitude, 
which  have  been  running  to  seed  badly  since  we  caused 
the  Pax  Britannica  to  prevail  from  the  Himalayas  to  the 
Southern  Cape. 

Jodhpur  is  a  little  off  the  route  of  the  autumn  tourist, 
though  he  appears  occasionally.  If  properly  recom- 
mended he  will  be  entertained  in  great  comfort  in  the 
Maharaja's  luxurious  guest-house,  where  he  will  find 
himself  provided  with  commodious  rooms,  and  as  good  a 
menu  at  dinner  and  breakfast  and  tiffin  as  any  reasonable 
man  can  desire.  Also  the  State  will  decline  to  receive 
any  remuneration  from  him  for  all  this  generous  hospit- 
ality. Otherwise  he  must  go  to  the  Dak  Bungalow,  for 
a  hotel  in  Jodhpur  is  not  yet.  Presently  it  will  come. 
The  English  visitor,  the  American,  the  German,  will  find 
out  the  city,  pervade  it,  and  spoil  it.  Meanwhile  it  re- 
mains, in  spite  of  Sir  Pertab  Singh,  and  the  railway 
and  the  polo  and  racing-stables,  unspoilt,  picturesque, 
and  entirely  delightful.  It  is  still  a  fragment  of  the 
feudal,  mediaeval  India,  whose  development  we  cut  short. 
Feudalism  speaks  to  us  as  we  look  up  to  the  towering 
rock,  frowning  three  hundred  feet  above  the  sandy  plain, 
on  which  the  Eao  Jodha  built  his  fortress,  a  vast  and 
splendid  castle- palace,  with  massive  gateways,  and  a  ring 
of  guard-houses  and  embattled  outworks,  with  a  great 
bastioned  wall  which  is  thrown  all  round  the  city. 

In  the  beauty  and  romance  of  its  situation,  Jodhpur 
falls  behind  Udaipur ;  but  in  Eastern  colour  and  pictur- 
esqueness  it  does  not  yield  to  many  cities  in  India.  It  is 
full  of  Hindu  temples,  with  elaborate  fronts  and  open 
courtyards.  You  may  go  as  far  as  the  entrance  of  these 
courts,  but  not  farther,  unless  you  will  consent  to  take  off 
your  boots,  which  is  a  proceeding  unsuited  to  the  dignity 


SOME   RAJPUT   CAPITALS  105 

of  the  ruling  race  in  India.  When  I  went  to  the  oldest 
and  most  venerated  of  these  temples,  though  accompanied 
by  a  distinguished  Anglo-Indian  official  and  a  most  con- 
sequential chuprassi,  we  were  not  permitted  to  pass 
beyond  the  threshold  ;  indeed,  when  we  placed  our  feet 
an  inch  or  two  farther,  a  bearded  old  gentleman,  with  a 
conspicuous  red-and-white  caste-mark  smeared  all  over 
his  forehead,  angrily  motioned  us  back.  Otherwise  the 
Brahmans  were  quite  civil,  and  allowed  us  to  look  in  and 
see  about  a  dozen  worshippers  going  through  a  sort 
of  morning  service,  and  raising  a  monotonous  wailing 
chant  before  the  canvas  screen  which  hid  the  idol  from 
view.  They  were  chiefly  women.  The  temple  itself  was 
built  by  a  Maharani ;  and  we  were  told  that  the  priests 
depend  largely  on  wealthy  ladies,  who  are  more  regular 
and  constant  in  their  devotions  than  persons  of  the  other 
sex.  The  same  phenomenon  has  been  observed  else- 
where. 

There  are  other  imposing  buildings  in  the  place 
besides  the  temples.  The  wealthy  Thakor,  or  feudal  land- 
owner, has  his  town  house  in  Jodhpur,  as  the  old  French 
nobles  had  their  hotels  in  Paris,  and  here  he  comes  from 
time  to  time  to  attend  the  Court,  and  generally  make  a 
show.  His  mansion  is  as  large  as  his  means  allow,  and 
sometimes  larger ;  for  he  likes  to  ruffle  it  with  a  suit- 
able following  of  spearmen  and  sword-bearers.  Some 
of  the  older  houses  now  occupied  by  wealthy  baniyas, 
or  traders,  have  elaborate  facades,  with  overhanging 
balconies,  nobly  carved  in  that  fine  old  red  sandstone 
which  is  the  best  material  for  Indian  architecture,  since 
it  is  sufficiently  soft  to  take  the  most  delicate  tracery 
and  chisel-work,  while  it  is  hard  enough  to  weather 
the  climate.  In  front  of  these  loftier  fabrics,  or  in  the 
lower  storeys,  under  pent-house  roofs,  the  busy  bazaar 
goes  on  from  early  morning  till  late  night,  a  bazaar  of 


106  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

tiny  cells  packed  close,  like  those  of  a  beehive,  in  which 
the  trader  sits  on  the  floor  in  the  midst  of  his  wares.  If 
you  want  to  buy  anything,  you  stop  in  the  street  and 
traffic  with  him  across  the  stone  lintel ;  if  he  desires  to 
offer  you  something,  he  reaches  out  a  hand  to  his  stock 
piled  about  him,  or  extracts  it  from  a  tin  box  or  a  rag 
bundle.  He  does  not  need  to  rise  ;  all  his  commodities 
are  within  arm's  length.  When  you  begin  the  process  of 
bargaining,  without  which,  of  course,  nobody  buys  or 
sells  anything,  the  passers-by  gather  in  a  small  circle, 
and  watch  the  process  with  interest.  There  is  no 
particular  use  in  attempting  to  maintain  privacy,  in  a 
place  where  every  man's  business  is  done  in  public. 
Competition,  one  would  suppose,  must  be  limited  in 
Jodhpur,  and  the  market  is  an  open  one  in  every  sense. 
Custom  ordains  that  dealers  of  the  same  trade  should  put 
their  shops  side  by  side  ;  consequently,  if  jeweller  number 
one  is  selling  a  silver  bangle  or  a  pair  of  gold- wire  earrings, 
jeweller  number  two  has  only  to  crane  an  ear  round  the 
partition- wall  to  know  all  about  the  transaction. 

Even  affairs  of  state  are  managed  with  the  same 
artless  publicity.  A  mint,  for  example,  would  seem  to  be 
an  institution  in  which  closed  doors  are  essential.  But  in 
Jodhpur  the  royal  mint  is  up  a  small  courtyard,  opening 
from  the  main  bazaar,  and  anybody  who  pleases  can  stroll 
in  and  watch  the  current  coin  of  the  realm  in  course  of 
manufacture.  Under  a  little,  open,  whitewashed  roof 
there  are  two  or  three  tiny  furnaces,  two  or  three  small 
anvils,  and  two  or  three  nearly  naked  workmen.  Three 
iron  pegs,  six  inches  high,  with  flattened  heads,  look- 
ing rather  like  exaggerated  golf-tees,  spring  from  the 
stone  floor ;  one  of  them  is  the  die  for  the  gold  pieces, 
one  for  the  silver  rupees,  and  one  for  the  lesser  coins. 
The  workman  takes  a  lump  of  bullion  in  his  hands, 
heats  it  in  the  furnace,  cuts  off  a  round  or  moderately 


SOME  EAJPTJT  CAPITALS  107 

round  disc,  carries  it  with  his  pincers  to  the  die, 
and  hammers  on  it  until  he  has  got  a  sufficient  impres- 
sion ;  then  he  casts  it  aside  upon  a  little  heap  to  get  cool, 
and  to  be  conveyed  to  the  royal  treasury.  This  free- 
and-easy  mint,  I  am  told,  was  a  busy  place  two  or  three 
years  ago.  Unhappily,  progress  is  laying  its  touch  upon 
Jodhpur.  The  State  has  adopted  the  Indian  Government's 
rupee,  and  imports  most  of  its  coinage.  The  mint  is  now 
chiefly  occupied  in  manufacturing  a  few  gold  mohurs,  and 
copper  coins.  It  will  also  supply  you  with  seven  of  the 
small  two-anna  pieces,  made  with  shanks  to  wear  as 
buttons,  if  you  give  the  order  for  the  same  to  the  intelli- 
gent, but  unclothed,  official  in  charge,  in  exchange  for  a 
rupee.  As  the  rupee  is  worth  sixteen  annas,  the  profit 
on  the  transaction  to  the  Controller  of  the  Mint,  or  to  the 
Treasury,  is  about  twopence,  including  the  cost  of  labour. 
When  the  tourist  has  really  annexed  Jodhpur,  no  doubt 
the  price  will  rise. 

Animals,  as  well  as  men  and  women  and  impish 
brown  children,  swarm  through  the  Jodhpur  bazaars. 
High,  gaunt,  brown  camels,  sometimes  in  strings  of  half 
a  dozen  or  so,  thread  their  way  through  the  narrow  lanes. 
Well -mounted  young  Thakors,  on  sporting-looking  country- 
breds,  come  cantering  by.  Goats  and  chickens  walk  in 
and  out  of  the  houses,  great  grey  baboons  chatter  among 
the  sparse  trees  of  the  suburbs,  and  dogs  of  all  kinds 
prowl  about  in  the  roadways,  unnoticed — for  what  Indian 
native  would  demean  himself  to  pay  any  attention  to  a 
dog? — but  unmolested.  Bulls  and  heifers  and  horned 
cattle  of  every  sort  pervade  the  place,  standing  about  on 
the  pavements,  browsing  at  the  market-stalls,  and 
generally  making  themselves  at  home.  Nobody  interferes 
with  them  beyond  giving  them  a  gentle  push  when  they 
are  too  much  in  the  way.  The  great  beasts  are  so  used  to 
human   society  that  they  move  about  quite  lightly  and 


108  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

intelligently,  and  cause  far  less  obstruction  than  might 
be  imagined.  Twice  a  day  all  these  wandering  cattle, 
bullocks,  buffaloes,  skimpy  calves,  and  sleek  Brahminy 
bulls,  assemble  in  an  open  space  fitted  wTith  many  deep 
stone  troughs.  These  are  supplied  with  grain  through 
the  posthumous  munificence  of  a  wealthy  Marwar  mer- 
chant, who  left  money  for  this  purpose,  and  in  conse- 
quence obtains,  I  believe,  several  million  years  of  celestial 
bliss.  The  universal  Hindu  respect  for  the  cow  and  its 
kin  seem  accompanied  in  Eajputana  by  a  real  liking.  I 
made  an  observation  on  this  point  to  the  highly  intelligent 
Bengali  babu,  from  the  Prime  Minister's  office,  who, 
through  the  kindness  of  the  State  authorities,  was  de- 
puted to  be  my  amiable  and  courteous  guide  in  Jodhpur. 
1  It  is  true,  sir,'  he  replied,  '  in  this  region  there  is  much 
predilection  for  the  bovine  species.'  The  predilection  is 
supposed  to  be  general  throughout  India,  but  in  Kajputana 
it  is  less  theoretical  than  in  other  districts. 


JAIPUR   AND   BIKANER. 

The  *  rose-red  city '  of  Jaipur  has  a  great  reputation 
for  picturesqueness  and  artistic  effect,  which  is  somewhat 
beyond  its  deserts,  and  is  due  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  it 
is  on  the  regular  tourist  line,  and  is  taken  in  his  stride 
by  the  autumn  visitor  who  *  does  '  India,  between  Bombay 
and  Calcutta,  in  a  few  weeks.  But  when  you  compare 
Jaipur  with  the  other  capitals  of  Eajputana,  with  Udai- 
pur,  by  its  enchanted  lakes,  with  Jodhpur,  with  its 
grand  fortress-palace,  and  its  crowded,  quaint  bazaars, 
with  Bikaner,  islanded  in  its  desert,  Jaipur  seems  modern, 
pretentious,  artificial,  rather  vulgar.  One  is  inclined  to 
agree  with  a  great  Indian  Viceroy  who  declared  the 
*  rose-red   city '   to   be  no  more  than   a  rose-red   fraud. 


SOME   RAJPUT   CAPITALS  109 

It  is  clean,  well  planned,  well  governed,  prosperous,  pro- 
gressive. But  it  has  lost  a  good  deal  of  that  distinctive 
old-world  flavour  of  Eastern  medievalism  which  renders 
the  other  towns  so  delightful. 

In  some  respects  Bikaner  is  the  most  interesting 
of  ail.  Four  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  when  the 
Moghuls  were  pressing  hard  upon  the  rulers  of  Marwar, 
Bika  Singh,  the  sixth  son  of  the  Kao  Jodha,  the  founder 
of  Jodhpur,  moved  into  the  heart  of  the  wilderness  and 
founded  a  new  city  there.  All  Bajputana  is  more  or 
less  desert,  but  Bikaner  State  is  desert  almost  unadul- 
terated— a  waste  of  waterless  sand,  with  green  oases,  on 
which  are  villages  and  cultivated  fields.  From  the  old 
palace  of  Bikaner,  builded  on  a  rock,  as  all  these  Bajput 
citadels  were,  you  see,  beyond  the  low  houses  and  flat 
roofs  of  the  town,  the  desert  extending  on  all  sides,  like  a 
sea.  And,  indeed,  at  some  hours  it  is  hard  to  persuade 
oneself  that  it  is  not  the  sea ;  for  in  the  heat-haze  the 
brown  and  yellow  tones  turn  to  purple  and  the  effect 
is  that  of  a  level  plain  of  dark  water.  If  you  mount  a 
horse  and  ride  in  any  direction,  in  ten  minutes  you  are 
deep  in  the  desert,  with  nothing  about  you  but  drifting 
sand  and  a  few  weakly  stunted  bushes. 

Bikaner  is  a  fragment  of  Arabia  or  Africa  transported 
to  India ;  and  the  town  itself  seems  Syrian  or  Egyptian, 
with  its  thick  walls  of  sandstone,  its  square  flat-roofed 
houses,  its  prevailing  tints  of  brown  and  orange,  its 
plenitude  of  camels,  which  here  attain  a  speed  and 
strength  and  spirit  beyond  those  of  their  fellows  in 
other  parts  of  India.  To  the  Bikaner  people,  till  the  rail- 
way came,  the  camel  was  as  necessary  as  it  is  to  the 
Bedaween  and  the  Sudanese.  It  was  their  connecting- 
link  with  the  outer  world,  their  only  means  of  transport- 
ing goods  and  merchandise  across  the  arid  wilderness 
which  shut  them  in  on  all  sides.     Under  the  conditions 


110  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

of  its  existence  Bikaner  might  be  expected  to  show 
itself  a  poverty-stricken  town,  struggling  desperately  for 
a  bare  livelihood.  But  it  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  On  the 
contrary,  it  impresses  the  stranger  with  its  air  of  pro- 
sperity and  well-being.  There  is  an  old  palace  on  the 
Fort  which  shows  that  the  Maharajas  of  Bikaner  in  the 
past  contrived  to  get  a  good  deal  of  money  to  spend.  It 
is  a  vast  rambling  structure,  a  maze  of  small  rooms  and 
dark  passages,  like  many  of  these  Indian  palaces,  with 
the  usual  medley  of  incised  marble  and  glittering  rubbish. 
But  it  has  a  fine  collection  of  old  arms,  and  a  library  of 
exquisite  illuminated  Hindu  and  Arabic  manuscripts  and 
other  things,  to  testify  that  for  centuries  past  the  Bikaner 
kingdom  has  enjoyed  a  prosperous  civilisation. 

Agriculture  in  this  tract  of  bare  and  drifting  sand 
must  be  a  heart-breaking  business ;  and  when  the  rains 
fail,  as  they  did  to  a  great  extent  in  the  year  1905,  then 
the  farms  simply  go  out  of  cultivation  and  four-fifths  of 
them  are  temporarily  abandoned.  Yet  in  this  trying 
environment  the  races  of  Raj  put  an  a  are  seen  at  their 
best.  The  cleverest  and  wealthiest  of  the  Marwari 
merchants  issue  from  the  desert-city,  and  often  come 
back  to  it.  The  Bajput  physique  is  perfected  by  the  sun 
and  wind.  Many  of  the  women  are  tall  and  straight, 
with  clear  skins  and  regular  features ;  and  the  men  of 
the  Bikaner  Contingent,  who  served  as  a  camel- corps  in 
China  and  Somaliland,  are  as  fine  a  body  of  long-limbed 
clean-built  troopers  and  sepoys  as  India  can  produce. 

There  is  an  excellent  gaol,  managed  under  English 
direction,  where  the  convicts  make  carpets  that  are  sold  all 
over  the  world ;  there  is  a  good  club ;  and  the  clever  ener- 
getic young  Maharaja  has  lately  built  a  splendid  new  palace, 
a  really  fine  example  of  modern  Indian  architecture,  fur- 
nished in  excellent  taste,  and  provided  with  electric  fans 
and  electric    lights    and    all   the   latest   improvements. 


SOME   EAJPUT  CAPITALS  111 

With  all  this  the  atmosphere  of  the  place  still  remains 
antique  and  Oriental. 

Jaipur  is  different.  It  is  two  hundred  years  old,  but 
it  is  in  some  respects  more  modern  than  most  towns  in 
Europe.  The  Maharaja  Jai  Singh,  who  founded  it  in 
1728,  was  a  reformer,  a  utilitarian,  and  a  man  of  science. 
He  was  a  great  astronomer,  and  established  an  Observa- 
tory, which  consists  of  a  sandy  courtyard  with  immense 
instruments  built  up  of  brick  and  stone,  that  look  as  if 
intended  to  be  playthings  for  a  race  of  giants. 

Jai  Singh  would  have  proved  an  invaluable  chairman 
for  the  Improvements  Committee  in  a  modern  borough 
council.  He  had  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him,  since  he 
knew  that  urban  locomotion  demands  broad  and  straight 
streets.  These  conditions  could  not  be  effectively  secured 
at  the  old  capital  of  Amber,  up  among  the  hills,  five 
miles  away,  which  now  lies,  with  its  marble  courts  and 
embossed  houses,  empty,  deserted,  and  exquisite.  The 
palace  at  Amber  was  built  in  the  great  age  of  Eajput 
architecture.  It  is  full  of  dignity  and  stateliness,  and 
though  its  internal  decorations  are  tinselly  and  meretri- 
cious, it  has  beautiful  ceilings,  held  up  by  noble  columns, 
trellised  balconies,  with  chiselled  screens  of  stone-work, 
and  a  labyrinth  of  porticoes  and  flat  roofs,  which  give 
lovely  views  of  the  valley  and  the  hills.  '  0  Progress, 
what  crimes  are  committed  in  thy  name ! '  So  one 
feels  inclined  to  say  on  surveying  the  work  of  the  early 
municipal  reformer,  who  wrote  the  doom  of  Amber  in 
order  that  he  might  create  Jaipur. 

But  Jai  Singh  did  not  want  his  improved  scientific 
capital  to  be  complicated  by  valleys  and  rising  ground. 
He  perceived  that  for  a  city,  laid  out  on  a  strictly  regular 
geometrical  pattern,  a  level  site  is  the  best.  So  he  planted 
the  new  town  on  a  dead,  flat,  dusty  plain,  without  a  hillock 
or  a  depression  anywhere.     Its  ground-plan  is  like  that  of 


112  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

a  modern  American  city.  The  main  avenues  run  straight 
as  a  line  from  end  to  end,  a  hundred  and  eleven  feet  wide, 
which  is  more  than  the  width  of  any  thoroughfare  in 
London,  except  about  three.  Lesser,  but  still  very  wide, 
streets  run  parallel  to  these  ;  others  cross  them  at  right- 
angles.  There  are  circular  spaces  at  various  points,  and 
in  the  middle  of  all  is  the  palace,  covering  an  enormous 
area  of  ground,  with  its  stables,  its  menageries,  and  its 
great  oblong  sanded  arena,  in  which  the  king's  animals, 
his  horses,  elephants,  bears,  wild  boars,  rams,  and  ante- 
lopes, exercise  and  occasionally  fight. 

It  is  rather  curious  to  reflect  that  some  fifty  years 
before  Jai  Singh  created  his  new  capital,  Sir  Christopher 
Wren  drew  up  a  somewhat  similar  plan  (it  is  now  in  the 
library  of  All  Souls  College,  Oxford)  for  the  rebuilding  of 
London  after  the  Great  Fire.  Wren  could  not  get  the 
Corporation  to  accept  his  design ;  but  Jai  Singh  had  no 
Lord  Mayor  and  Common  Council  to  consult,  and  as  the 
King  ordered,  so  it  was  done.  He  decreed  that  his  city 
should  be  all  of  a  deep  pink,  the  colour  of  the  red  sand- 
stone, and  thus  it  is  to  this  day.  Unfortunately,  there  was 
not  enough  of  the  stone  to  go  round,  and  most  of  the 
buildings  are  of  painted  stucco.  Moreover,  they  are  very 
low,  and  they  look  ridiculously  mean  and  petty,  ranged 
along  the  immense  sandy  roadways.  In  many  cases, 
upper  storeys,  with  battlemented  parapets,  have  been 
superimposed,  but  these  only  make  matters  worse ;  for  they 
are  obviously  '  duffers,'  mere  shells  of  wall,  with  no  roofs 
and  no  rooms  behind  them.  In  this  way  they  add  to  the 
general  air  of  theatrical  unreality  with  which  the  city  is 
invested.  It  seems  a  town  of  pasteboard,  a  hollow  affair 
of  lath  and  plaster,  and  canvas  and  paint,  made  to  be 
looked  at,  but  not  to  stand,  like  those  imitation  streets — 
'India  in  London,'  or  'Venice  in  London' — which  are 
sometimes    exhibited   for    our    entertainment.      Indeed, 


SOME   RAJPUT   CAPITALS  113 

when  I  drove  through  the  town  for  the  first  time,  and 
saw  it  adorned  with  flags  and  coloured  transparencies 
of  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales,  I  could  not  escape 
the  feeling  that  the  whole  city  had  been  run  up  for  the 
occasion  by  some  enterprising  caterer,  and  that  it  would 
be  taken  down  and  packed  away  for  use  elsewhere  when 
done  with. 

The  circus-like  impression  is  intensified  when  you 
wander  about  the  vast  pink  palace,  with  its  menagerie  of 
animals.  You  come  upon  elephant-stables  and  camel- 
stables  ;  and  there  are  all  kinds  of  creatures,  housed  in 
what  look  like  temporary  sheds,  apparently  just  prepar- 
ing to  •  go  on.'  Within  the  precincts  of  the  building,  in 
close  proximity  to  the  reception-rooms,  with  their  new 
French  furniture,  their  gilding,  and  chandeliers,  and 
glistening  modern  glass-ware,  there  is  a  whole  village  of 
mud  huts,  with  half-naked  men  and  women,  and  wholly 
naked  brown  children  tumbling  about  in  the  sunshine. 
This  mingling  of  luxury  and  squalor  is  very  characteristic 
of  India.  You  find  it  everywhere.  Eags  and  silk  and 
jewels  are  always  in  juxtaposition.  Tattered  hangers-on 
loaf  about  the  courtyards  of  great  people,  even  on  the 
most  solemn  occasions  of  State. 

At  Jaipur  these  villagers,  I  believe,  are  the  sweepers 
and  cleaners  of  the  palace  and  the  attendants  on  the 
Maharaja's  livestock,  which  last  is  highly  extensive  and 
varied.  I  went  to  a  sort  of  gymkhana  or  exhibition,  held 
in  the  arena,  early  one  morning,  and  saw  a  great  many  of 
them.  There  were  haughty  cream-coloured  and  piebald 
stallions  with  sumptuous  velvet  housings,  bulls  and 
buffaloes,  pretty  little  chinkara  deer,  and  spotted  antelopes, 
huge  grunting  boars,  young  pigs  playful  as  kittens, 
and  rams  with  threatening  voluted  horns.  All  of  them 
were  tethered  with  ropes,  and  in  the  case  of  the  larger 
beasts  there  were  half  a  dozen  men  hanging  on  to  each 

I 


114  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

rope.  After  being  led  round  the  ring,  the  animals  were 
pitted  against  each  other  in  pairs.  There  were  quail- 
fights,  and  cock-fights,  and  deer-fights,  and  boar-fights, 
and  little-pig-fights,  and  ram-fights.  It  was  rather  a  poor 
show,  not  without  an  element  of  cruelty.  Most  of  the 
animals  had  no  stomach  for  the  fray ;  and  as  for  the  fat 
and  well-fed  boars,  they  simply  looked  at  one  another  and 
turned  away,  until  hustled  together  by  the  attendants, 
when  they  lost  their  tempers,  and  cut  and  ripped  in 
earnest,  inflicting  some  nasty  gashes.  The  only  really 
spirited  contests  were  between  the  rams,  who  charged  each 
other  with  fury,  clashed  their  armed  foreheads  together 
with  a  shock  like  a  pistol-shot,  and  were  pulled  away  half- 
stunned  after  each  encounter.  The  Prince  and  Princess 
of  Wales  did  not  attend  this  exhibition,  and  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding is  regarded  with  little  favour  by  the  Government 
of  India,  though  the  privilege  of  keeping  and  training 
fighting-beasts  for  the  arena  is  one  which  the  independent 
princes  are  unwilling  to  surrender.  In  its  present  modified 
and  mitigated  form  it  seems  hardly  worth  retaining,  and 
even  the  tiger-  and  boar-fights  and  the  rhinoceros -fights 
are  said  to  be  very  tame  performances. 

This  kind  of  survival  seems  particularly  out  of  place 
in  Jaipur,  which  in  many  ways  is  quite  a  modern  city. 
It  is  well  kept,  it  is  lighted  by  gas,  and  it  has  hotels  for 
the  accommodation  of  the  autumnal  visitors.  It  has 
a  famous  School  of  Art,  where  they  make  excellent 
enamelled  metal  ware  under  exceedingly  skilled  direction  ; 
and  it  has  the  best  museum,  with  one  exception,  in  all 
India,  a  museum  which,  in  the  careful  selection  and 
the  judicious  arrangement  of  its  contents,  is  a  model  of 
what  such  an  institution  ought  to  be.  There  are  a 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  people  in  Jaipur,  and  the 
place  is  full  of  life  and  business,  the  commercial  centre 
and  entrepot  of  all  Eajputana  and  the  adjacent  parts  of 


S  & 

Ph  « 

til  & 

o 


t  c  cc  c 


SOME  RAJPUT  CAPITALS  115 

India.  The  Maharaja  has  shown  considerable  interest, 
as  befits  a  descendant  of  Jai  Singh,  in  art,  and  science, 
and  education ;  and  it  seems  prosperous  enough,  even  in 
a  famine  year.  Being  a  resort  of  many  traders  and  artisans 
from  various  districts,  near  and  remote,  it  assembles  a 
variegated  multitude  in  its  wide  avenues.  If  the  rose- 
pink  walls  are  shoddy,  the  crowd  is  genuine,  and  delight- 
ful hours  may  be  spent  in  watching  its  motley  streams 
and  mingling  with  its  noisy  eddies. 


i  2 


116  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 


CHAPTEK  IX 
HIS  HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA 

He  may,  or  may  not,  have  some  of  the  best  blood  in 
India  in  his  veins.  In  the  East  birth  and  breeding  go  a 
long  way,  but  they  are  not  everything  ;  and  in  the  curious 
chaos  of  Indian  history  strange  things  have  happened. 
The  long  procession  of  Princes  and  Kuling  Chiefs  who 
passed  before  the  Shahzada  on  his  way  through  the 
Empire  can  only  be  described  as  a  miscellaneous  collection. 
They  differed  from  each  other  as  much  in  origin  and 
descent  as  they  did  in  appearance  and  religion.  Some 
were  of  the  pure  northern  strain,  men  who  could  trace 
back  in  unbroken  sequence  to  the  earliest  conquerors, 
who  have  preserved  their  race  to  this  day,  uncontami- 
nated  by  admixture  with  the  inferior  castes,  the  black 
children  of  the  soil.  The  ancestors  of  others  were  Arab 
or  Afghan  or  Tartar  raiders  centuries  ago ;  and  some  were 
the  descendants  of  cowherds  and  court  favourites  and 
soldiers  of  fortune,  who  were  upstarts  when  the  English 
came. 

It  was  interesting  to  note  the  variety  of  types  these 
feudatories  exhibited,  as  one  saw  them  at  the  receptions, 
which  were  held  in  each  province  and  group  of  states,  in 
order  that  they  might  make  their  salute  to  the  Prince 
and  present  him  with  the  nazar,  or  offering  of  gold  coins, 
to  be  touched  and  remitted.  Not  infrequent  was  the  kind 
of  person  whom  many  of  us  might  be  inclined  to  regard 
as  the  typical  Eaja,  the  huge  man,  with  thick  lips,  a  vast 


HIS   HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  117 

face,  great  insolent  shoulders,  like  those  of  a  Brahminy 
bull,  a  bloodshot  saturnine  eye,  an  elephantine  regal  gait ; 
a  king  obviously,  though  not  quite  the  sort  of  king  whose 
subject  one  would  care  to  be  under  genuine  Oriental  con- 
ditions. But  there  were  princes  of  a  very  different  make : 
high-bred  gentlemen,  tall  and  lithe,  with  olive  complexions 
and  oval  faces,  and  regular  features  of  the  Brahman  or 
Bajput  mould ;  or  lean,  wiry,  hook-nosed,  eagle-eyed 
warriors  from  the  Border ;  and  dark,  short  men  from  the 
south.  And  in  their  characters  and  their  situation  was  as 
much  variety  as  in  their  faces  and  their  figures. 

A  few  years  ago  it  would  have  been  easier  to  classify 
them  than  it  is  to-day.  Broadly  speaking,  they  would  have 
fallen  under  two  main  headings,  at  least  in  the  estimation 
of  the  Indian  Foreign  Office  and  the  Political  depart- 
ments. There  was  the  virtuous  Maharaja  and  there  was 
the  Maharaja  who  lacked  virtue.  The  un virtuous  Maharaja 
still  exists ;  but  he  is  mainly  a  survival,  and  he  has  had  his 
claws  so  severely  pared  and  his  wings  so  closely  clipped 
that  his  more  picturesque  lapses  from  the  straight  path 
are  no  longer  possible.  We  have  made  examples  of  so 
many  of  his  kind  that  he  has  become  exceedingly  cautious ; 
nor  do  his  supervisors  and  the  representatives  of  the 
paramount  Power  allow  him  so  much  latitude  as  the 
more  indulgent  *  politicals '  of  the  past.  The  unvirtuous 
Maharaja  was  often  inclined  to  treat  his  state  as  his  own 
private  property,  and  to  spend  its  revenues  for  his  personal 
gratification.  He  filled  his  great  rambling  palace  with 
monstrosities  from  Europe,  for  which  he  was  charged  blood- 
curdling prices.  He  spent  lakhs  of  rupees  on  emeralds  to 
adorn  his  own  person  and  diamonds  for  his  favourite  wife 
or  more  favourite  dancing-girl.  He  built  new  wings  to 
his  noble  old  residence,  of  monumental  hideousness,  and 
emptied  the  State  treasury  to  pay  for  horrible  glass  lustre 
chandeliers,   crystal  thrones,  and   gilded  Lord   Mayor's 


118  A   VISION  OF   INDIA 

carriages ;  or  he  wasted  his  substance  on  a  stud  of  elephants 
with  silver  howdahs,  on  fighting  bears  and  tigers,  and  on 
whole  menageries  of  animals,  wild  and  tame. 

These  were  the  milder  indulgences,  and  with  them  we 
did  not,  and  do  not,  interfere  when  exercised  in  con- 
junction with  a  reasonable  amount  of  good  government. 
But  when  his  Highness  took  to  twisting  the  tails  of  his 
Sardars,  his  knights  and  barons,  in  order  to  make  them 
yield  more  than  the  feudal  revenues,  when  he  levied 
mediaeval  benevolences  and  plundered  his  merchants  and 
traders,  when  he  courted  rebellion  by  general  maladmin- 
istration, and  tried  to  suppress  it  with  his  matchlock- 
men  and  his  ancient  batteries  of  smooth-bore  muzzle- 
loaders  :  when  he  broke  out  in  this  fashion,  it  became 
necessary  to  bring  his  performances  to  an  end. 

Nor  could  we  permit  his  private  life  to  rise  above  a 
certain  level  of  scandalousness.  We  were  not  too  par- 
ticular in  these  matters,  and  we  preferred  not  to  inquire 
curiously  into  the  interior  economy  of  the  palace.  But 
the  Eastern  despot,  who  lives  in  the  true  Eastern 
fashion,  finds  moderation  difficult,  and  easily  slides  into 
practices  which  make  it  impossible  for  self-respecting 
individuals  or  governments  to  have  any  friendly  relations 
with  him.  In  due  course,  the  career  of  the  unvirtuous 
Maharaja  is  brought  to  a  conclusion.  After  sufficient 
warning,  the  Government  of  India  drops  down  a  heavy 
hand  upon  him,  and  flattens  him  out,  to  rise,  as  a  rule,  no 
more.  Sometimes  the  State  is  put  into  commission,  under 
the  political  agent,  and  the  Baja  is  given  a  period  for 
repentance,  with  a  promise  of  restoration  if  he  shows 
signs  of  amending  his  ways.  More  often  he  is  deposed 
and  pensioned  off,  and  his  throne  is  conferred  upon  some 
reputable  brother  or  cousin ;  or  one  of  the  royal  infants 
is  taken  away  to  be  educated  up  to  the  latest  Anglo-Indian 
standard,  while  a  Council  of  Kegency  is  appointed  to  do 


HIS    HIGHNESS'S    SUITE. 


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( 

HIS   HIGHNESS   THE   MAHARAJA  119 

those  things  which  seem  good  in  the  eyes  of  Simla  and 
the  local  Agency,  until  such  time  as  the  young  sovereign 
comes  of  age  and  can  take  up  the  reins  of  government, 
and  proceed,  it  is  hoped,  to  put  into  practice  the  lessons 
of  his  preceptors. 

Like  other  dethroned  monarchs,  the  deposed  Maharaja 
does  not  always  take  his  fall  quietly,  and  may  show  a 
disposition  to  give  trouble,  sometimes  by  fomenting  in- 
ternal intrigue  within  his  late  dominions,  more  frequently 
by  trying  to  reach  the  ear  of  the  Viceroy  and  other 
influential  persons  in  Asia  and  Europe.  As  a  rule  he  is 
harmless,  and  relapses  after  a  time  to  a  struggle  between 
his  allowance  and  his  pleasures.  A  curious  little  incident 
occurred  while  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  the  guest  of  one 
of  the  greater  chiefs,  a  promising  young  ruler,  with 
sporting  and  Anglicising  tastes,  who  had  been  substituted 
within  the  past  few  years  for  a  disreputable  elderly  pre- 
decessor. There  was  a  garden-party  at  the  Eesidency, 
the  Koyal  visitors  being  present,  together  with  the  young 
Maharaja  and  most  of  the  native  and  European  notabili- 
ties of  the  district.  In  the  midst  of  the  entertainment, 
while  the  band  was  playing  and  the  guests  were  busy 
with  tea  and  ices,  the  slightest  possible  signs  of  activity 
were  visible  in  the  local  official  group  ;  and  the  officers  in 
command  of  the  Eesidency  guard  and  the  troops  brought 
up  from  the  nearest  British  cantonment  held  a  brief  con- 
sultation. Not  till  afterwards  was  it  known,  and  then 
only  to  a  minute  number  of  persons,  that  the  deposed 
chief  had  been  in  need  of  attention.  The  old  ruffian  had 
made  various  applications  to  be  allowed  to  see  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  which  had  been  ignored ;  and  finally,  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  garden-party,  news  was  received  that  he 
had  started  off  on  his  motor-car,  from  his  castle  a  few 
miles  distant,  to  pay  his  respects  in  person.  This  could 
not  be  permitted,  so  a  small  party  of  well-mounted  sowars 


120  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

was  despatched  to  head  off  the  vehicle  and  lead  the  dis- 
crowned potentate  safely  home  again. 

The  un virtuous  Maharaja,  though  he  had  a  taste  for 
Western  luxuries  and  Western  extravagances,  was  usually 
Oriental  and  Conservative  in  his  political  attitude.  He 
had  no  sympathy  with  modern  progress,  and  strenuously 
objected  to  reforms,  which,  as  he  perceived,  must  often 
cost  money  he  preferred  to  spend  on  himself,  his  house- 
hold, and  his  zenana.  Schools,  model  prisons,  hospitals, 
irrigation  works,  and  famine  relief  would  make  a  con- 
siderable hole  in  his  private  Civil  List.  Therefore  his 
Highness  entrenched  himself  behind  Hindu  or  Mussul- 
man orthodoxy,  and  protested  as  vehemently  as  he  dared 
against  innovations.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  may  have 
been  unselfish  in  his  opposition,  knowing  that  the  re- 
forming schemes  would  bring  more  Englishmen  and 
English  influences  into  his  dominions,  and  so  shake  the 
belief  of  his  subjects  in  the  wisdom  of  their  fathers  and 
the  ancient  social  and  religious  ways. 

One  of  the  best  of  the  present  ruling  chiefs,  a  man  of 
the  highest  character  and  deservedly  respected  by  English 
and  natives  throughout  India,  takes  this  view.  He  is 
a  champion  of  the  old  Hindu  system,  an  upright  and 
conscientious  sovereign,  who  does  the  best  for  his  subjects 
according  to  his  own  lights ;  but  he  sets  his  face  against 
the  wholesale  adoption  of  European  methods.  He  does 
not  want  his  people  to  live  in  imitation  English  houses, 
and  wear  shoddy  English  clothes ;  he  sees  no  great 
necessity  for  teaching  them  to  read  and  write,  holding 
that  education  will  only  turn  them  from  hunters  and 
herdsmen  into  clerks  and  babus.  He  keeps  rigidly  to  the 
caste  rules,  and  he  will  not  eat  with  Europeans,  or  drink 
their  whisky  and  champagne.  Even  the  railway  seems 
to  him  undesirable,  and  it  needed  a  good  deal  of  pressure 
before  he  would  permit  the  line  to  approach  his  ancient 


HIS  HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  121 

and  picturesque  capital.  His  territory  is  rich  in  mineral 
deposits ;  but  he  will  not  allow  them  to  be  worked  by 
modern  appliances,  and  he  discourages  the  beneficent  ad- 
vances of  the  company-promoter  and  the  share-monger. 
Nor  will  he  patronise  British  sport.  He  shoots  the  tiger 
and  spears  the  wild  pig,  and  leaves  polo  and  racing  and 
cricket  to  others. 

But  the  virtuous  Maharaja,  as  a  rule,  is  full  of 
English  ideas.  He  is  enlightened  and  progressive.  He 
adopts  the  Anglo-Indian  method  of  administration,  per- 
haps even  institutes  a  Council,  and  imports  a  Bengali 
or  two  to  act  as  Secretary  or  Legal  member.  He  re- 
forms his  judicature  on  the  English  model,  and  allows 
the  Penal  Code  to  prevail.  With  European  assistance 
he  improves  his  gaols,  and  sometimes  puts  his  instructors 
to  shame  by  the  excellence  of  his  work. 

There  is  not,  in  the  whole  of  India,  a  prison  more 
admirably  equipped  and  arranged  than  that  in  the  Maha- 
raja of  Bikaner's  capital :  there  is,  perhaps,  no  better  one 
anywhere.  Its  cleanliness,  sanitation,  and  good  order  are 
beyond  reproach,  and  one  can  scarcely  imagine  a  more 
cheerful,  and  apparently  contented,  body  of  criminals  than 
its  inmates.  They  have  large  open  corridors  to  sleep  in ; 
and  if  they  wear  fetters  on  their  legs,  that  is  only  in 
accordance  with  Indian  sentiment,  and  is,  moreover,  more 
humane  than  locking  up  prisoners  in  small  close  cells 
during  the  hot  weather.  Steady  industry  is  the  rule  in 
this  model  house  of  detention.  There  are  tailors'  shops, 
carpenters'  shops,  and  brassworkers'  shops ;  and  in  the 
great  weaving  and  tapestry  sheds,  murderers,  thieves, 
dacoits,  and  pickpockets  are  peacefully,  and  as  it  would 
seem  quite  happily,  employed  in  making  carpets  of  lovely 
design  and  irreproachable  workmanship  to  the  order  of 
wealthy  clients  all  over  the  world.  The  Bikaner  gaol  is 
not  only  efficient,  but  it  is  economical,  for  it  is  run  at  a 


122  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

clear  profit  to  the  state.  It  is  also  quite  popular  with 
its  tenants;  so  that  when  a  prisoner  shows  signs  of  in- 
subordination the  Governor  can  usually  reduce  him  to 
obedience  by  threatening  to  set  him  at  liberty  and  turn 
him  out.  Again,  at  Jaipur  there  is  a  museum,  which 
is  equal  to  any  in  India,  with  the  single  exception  of  that 
at  Lahore.  The  Maharaja  of  this  State  has  shown  him- 
self a  discriminating  and  liberal  patron  of  art  and  science ; 
and  he,  and  the  Nizam,  the  Maharaja  of  Gwalior,  and 
others,  have  founded  excellent  colleges  and  are  zealous 
promoters  of  the  higher  education  among  their  subjects. 

This  is  one  side  of  the  Anglicising  activity  of  these 
progressive  princes.  The  tendency  develops  in  other 
ways,  interesting,  but  not  always  of  such  unques- 
tionable utility.  They  have  an  inclination  to  gratify 
Western  tastes  more  reputable  than  those  of  their  pre- 
decessors, but  sometimes  quite  as  costly.  The  old 
rambling  palaces,  with  their  rookery  of  passages  and 
inlaid  cells  behind  marble  screens,  are  deserted ;  and  a 
fine  new  building,  with  large  modern  saloons  and  recep- 
tion-rooms, is  erected.  His  Highness  will  often  be  a  keen 
sportsman  himself,  and  a  munificent  patron  of  many 
kinds  of  sport.  Those  aspirations  after  excellence  in 
polo,  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  are  apt  to  run 
into  money,  and  the  durbar  may  be  required  to  pay  the 
expenses  of  training  a  first-class  team  and  buying  ponies 
at  prices  far  beyond  the  legitimate  resources  of  the  state 
treasury.  The  Chief  may  even  keep  a  racing-stable,  bring 
out  stud-grooms  and  trainers  from  England,  and  secure 
the  services  of  well-paid  English  jockeys  to  carry  his 
colours  at  the  fashionable  Indian  race-meetings. 

The  good  Maharaja's  English  friends  will  be  only  too 
ready  to  encourage  him  in  so  meritorious  an  extravagance 
as  that  of  promoting  open-air  recreations.  '  You  ought 
to  have  a  pack  of  jackal-hounds,  Maharaja  Sahib,'  says 


HIS  HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  123 

one  set  of  enthusiasts.  '  You  should  turn  that  field  into  a 
lawn-tennis  ground,'  suggests  another.  Anxious  to  oblige, 
the  Chief  provides  both  the  hunting  and  the  tennis,  much 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  subalterns  and  the  young  ladies 
of  the  station.  Meanwhile,  his  own  personal  tastes  must 
be  gratified  in  other  ways.  So  enlightened  a  student  of 
western  institutions  can  hardly  get  on  without  frequent 
visits  to  Bombay  and  Calcutta,  and  an  occasional  trip  to 
the  still  more  instructive  cities  of  London  and  Paris. 
Perhaps,  when  he  asks  permission  to  quit  his  dominions, 
the  Government  of  India  ungraciously  informs  him  that 
he  has  been  expending  far  too  much  money  on  his  various 
diversions,  and  reminds  him  that  his  subjects  are  suffering 
great  privation  from  the  failure  of  the  rains.  The  vir- 
tuous Maharaja  sighs,  and  proceeds  to  organise  famine 
relief,  not  in  the  ancient  rule-of-thumb  fashion  of  his 
royal  ancestors,  but  according  to  the  English  system. 

He  has  his  trials,  for  the  new  way  is  not  always 
understood,  and  it  may  have  to  be  worked  by  the  old 
officials.  It  is  said  that  during  a  recent  famine  the 
British  Eesident  remonstrated  with  a  native  prince  on  the 
mismanagement  of  his  relief  works.  '  These  men,  whom 
your  Highness  sent  to  distribute  food,  are  simply  robbing 
you.'  *  Eshmitt  Sahib,'  said  the  Maharaja  ;  '  is  there  a 
man  in  all  my  country,  except  yourself,  who  does  not  rob 
me  ? '  Indeed,  there  are  many  difficulties  before  the 
reforming  Kaja  in  this  transitional  age.  The  more  credit 
to  him  that  he  overcomes  them  so  well  as  he  often  does. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  the  most  brilliant  Anglo-Indian 
statesman  of  our  age  that  the  real  Indian  aristocracies, 
the  princely  class,  and  the  reigning  families,  were  never 
so  well  content  with  British  supremacy  or  so  loyal  to  the 
Empire  as  they  are  to-day.  Up  to  the  post-Mutiny 
settlement,  and  long  beyond  it,  there  were  always  princes 
who  could  be,  and  were,   centres  of  disaffection.     The 


124  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

insubordinate  or  disappointed  chief  easily  drifts  into  that 
position,  and  the  older  Indian  administrators  were  quite 
right  in  regarding  an  ill-disposed  Maharaja  of  one  of 
the  greater  states  as  a  possible  source  of  danger.  They 
knew  that  these  princes,  powerless  as  they  seemed  at  the 
moment,  might  under  conceivable  circumstances  become 
extremely  formidable. 

One  must,  of  course,  distinguish.  There  are  rajas  and 
chiefs  of  all  kinds  in  India,  from  the  Nizam — whose 
subjects  are  more  numerous  than  those  of  the  Queen  of 
Holland,  the  King  of  Belgium,  the  King  of  Denmark,  and 
the  King  of  Portugal  taken  together — to  the  petty  Nawab 
with  a  few  square  miles  of  territory  and  a  lakh  or  two  of 
revenue.  But  the  head  of  one  of  the  older  and  more 
influential  dynasties  is  undoubtedly  a  personage,  even 
outside  his  own  dominions.  It  was  impossible  to  mingle 
with  the  crowd  in  the  cities  through  which  the  Prince 
of  Wales  passed  without  feeling  that  some  of  these  poten- 
tates aroused  an  interest  in  the  native  breast  deeper  than 
that  evoked  by  any  British  official,  not  excluding  the 
highest  of  all.  A  Governor  or  Lieutenant-Governor,  the 
virtual  ruler  of  thirty  or  forty  millions  of  people,  is  in 
reality  a  far  more  important  individual,  especially  in  his 
own  province,  than  any  of  the  local  reigning  chiefs. 

Yet  I  think  that  the  multitude,  or  some  of  them,  looked 
on  the  Maharaja,  as  he  went  by  in  his  gilded  coach  and  four, 
followed  by  his  caracoling  escort,  with  a  livelier  and  more 
sentimental  curiosity  than  that  which  could  be  evoked 
even  by  the  *  Lord  Sahib  '  himself.  To  the  Indian  natives, 
our  officers,  civil  and  military,  our  judges,  commissioners, 
generals,  commanders-in-chief,  provincial  satraps,  vice- 
roys, are  mortal  men,  like  themselves  ;  highly  placed  and 
highly  paid  servants,  dignified  and  potent,  but  evanescent : 
here  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow,  moved  about  at  the  bid- 
ding of  unknown  masters.     It  is  otherwise  with  the  man 


HIS  HIGHNESS  THE  MAHAItAJA  125 

who  reigns  by  right  of  birth,  albeit  his  realm  may  be 
only  a  patch  of  rock-ribbed  desert,  and  his  authority  so 
restricted  that  he  cannot  sentence  a  convicted  murderer 
to  death  in  his  own  courts.1  The  sacredness  of  the 
1  Lord's  anointed '  is  still  a  living  force  in  the  East, 
though  the  idea  would  be  expressed  differently.  Loyalty 
has  much  of  the  old  meaning  which  it  has  lost  in  Europe ; 
it  includes  a  sort  of  religious  reverence  for  the  person  of 
the  sovereign,  and  a  tendency  to  regard  unquestioning 
obedience  to  his  commands  as  something  higher  than  a 
legal  duty.  It  may  be  taken  as  a  general  rule  in  native  India 
that  the  people  would  follow  their  princes — anywhere. 

And  even  to  those  outside  the  ranks  of  his  own  sub- 
jects the  ruling  Maharaja  frequently  represents  something 
of  significance.  He  may  be  the  head  of  a  great  religious 
community ;  or  the  premier  prince  of  a  race  which  is 
invested  with  a  special  sanctity  by  millions;  or  the  in- 
heritor of  a  stirring  tradition  of  conquest  and  successful 
war.  Even  when  their  material  power  is  trivial,  they 
may  wield  a  moral  influence  sufficient  to  render  their 
content  or  discontent  with  the  prevailing  regime  a  matter 
worth  very  serious  consideration. 

In  the  old  days  they  were  usually  discontented.  It 
was  very  natural  that  they  should  be  so.  They  had  sub- 
mitted to  the  paramount  Power  with  reluctance,  some- 
times because  they  had  been  subdued  by  force  of  arms, 
sometimes  because  of  irresistible  pacific  pressure,  some- 
times because  it  was  the  only  way  to  save  themselves 
from  being  wiped  out  by  stronger  neighbours.  But  they 
did  not  enjoy  the  situation,  nor  did  they  appreciate  the 
blessings  of  Imperial  rule.     Equal  laws  and  equal  rights 

1  It  is  only  in  a  few  of  the  larger  native  states  that  the  ruling  princes 
are  entrusted  with  what  is  technically  known  as  the  power  of  life  and 
death.  In  the  great  majority  of  these  states  no  death  penalty  can  be 
carried  out  except  after  reference  to  the  local  Agency  or  the  Government  of 
India. 


126  A    VISION  OF  INDIA 

had  few  attractions  for  men  whose  very  existence  was  an 
assertion  of  the  principle  of  inequality.  An  Eastern 
despot,  who  did  what  he  liked  in  his  own  country,  subject 
to  the  chances  of  rebellion,  and  made  war  when  he 
pleased,  would  seldom  care  to  exchange  this  exciting  irre- 
sponsibility for  an  uneventful  security  and  a  dignified 
dependence.  The  Government  of  India  put  him  in  leading- 
strings,  and  deprived  him  of  some  of  his  most  cherished 
indulgences.  The  true  Oriental  licence  to  plunder  and 
misgovern  was  practically  withdrawn.  His  territory  was 
no  longer  his  private  property ;  he  was  expected  to  con- 
sider the  feelings  and  interests  of  his  subjects,  with  what 
no  doubt  seemed  to  him  quite  superfluous  solicitude.  This 
patriarchal  mixture  of  oppression  and  generosity  had  to 
make  way  for  something  more  nearly  resembling  the  rule 
of  law.  The  process  annoyed  the  chief,  and  it  did  not 
always  please  the  people,  who  sometimes  preferred  the  old, 
irregular,  free-and-easy  arrangements.  Besides,  the  Eaja 
really  disliked  the  English  and  their  ways,  many  of  which 
seemed  to  him  offensive  or  absurd  or  irreligious,  and  he 
would  have  been  heartily  glad  to  see  them  cleared  out  of 
India  altogether.  So  he  was  potentially  disloyal,  though 
wise  enough  not  to  quarrel  openly  with  the  Power  that 
was  master  of  his  destinies. 

The  theory  of  the  statesman  to  whom  I  have  referred, 
and  of  many  other  distinguished  Indian  administrators, 
is  that  the  attitude  here  suggested  has  been  changed  in 
recent  years.  We  are  told  that  the  members  of  the 
great  ruling  and  princely  families  are  becoming  recon- 
ciled to  the  British  supremacy,  and  are  now  in  many 
cases  its  cordial  and  whole-hearted  supporters.  They 
no  longer  endure  it  with  sombre  acquiescence.  On  the 
contrary,  they  understand  the  prevailing  system,  they 
appreciate  the  benefits  it  confers  upon  the  country,  and 
they  would  be  the  last  persons  to  rejoice  at  its  overthrow. 


HIS  HIGHNESS  THE  MAHARAJA  127 

The  younger  generation  has  a  tendency  to  be  Anglophile. 
Some  of  the  princes  and  greater  territorial  proprietors 
have  been  educated  in  England  itself,  and  not  merely 
under  English  teachers  and  tutors ;  many  of  them  are  on 
very  friendly  terms  with  English  officers  and  officials,  they 
are  getting  to  like  their  ways,  they  join  in  their  sports  and 
games,  they  meet  them  in  business,  on  the  polo-field,  on 
the  parade-ground,  and  to  some  extent  in  society.  They 
have  abandoned  a  good  deal  of  their  exclusiveness  and 
aloofness,  and  find  it  possible  occasionally  to  be  on  terms 
of  frank  camaraderie  with  the  better  kind  of  Englishman. 
Then  they  know  more  of  England  and  of  the  extra- 
Indian  world  generally.  Some  of  them  travel,  and  read 
European  books,  not  excluding  fiction  from  the  fair  land 
of  France.  They  cultivate  a  taste  for  modern  inventions, 
and  have  modern  progressive  ideas  as  to  sanitation  and 
education.  All  these  things  put  them  in  a  better  frame  of 
mind  than  their  sulky  and  resentful  fathers  before  them. 

Add  to  all  this  that  we  are  at  length  making  some  pro- 
gress towards  bringing  them  back  to  the  only  career  which 
really  suits  a  member  of  an  Eastern  aristocratic  caste. 
We  are  giving  them  a  revived  interest  in  soldiering.  We 
have  always  permitted  the  native  States  to  keep  up  armies 
of  sorts.  But  it  was  our  policy  that  these  armies  should 
be  ineffective  for  fighting  purposes.  The  princes  might 
have  a  limited  number  of  men  in  buckram,  or  in  red  or 
khaki  coats,  or  in  mail  armour,  to  play  with  ;  but  we  could 
not  afford  to  let  these  troops  be  made  efficient  enough  to 
become  dangerous.  Consequently  we  have  refused  to  allow 
the  feudatories  to  have  their  regiments  drilled  by  European 
officers.  We  do  not  permit  them  to  possess  batteries  of 
breechloading  artillery,  and  we  forbid  the  purchase  of 
good  modern  rifles. 

The  forces  of  the  native  States  were  paraded  for 
the  Prince  of  Wales's  inspection  as  he  passed  through ; 


128  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

and  some  of  them  made  a  very  brilliant  appearance,  for 
we  exercise  no  veto  upon  the  sartorial  fancies  of  the 
Maharaja,  and  if  his  Highness  chooses  to  clothe  his  horde 
of  military  retainers,  armed  with  smooth-bore  muskets 
and  old  Enfield  carbines,  in  uniforms  of  canary  yellow  or 
blue  and  silver,  with  old  French  dragoon  helmets,  we  do 
not  offer  any  objection.  His  subjects  like  the  show,  and 
are  pleased  to  see  these  obsolete  warriors  facing  about 
and  presenting  arms,  while  Colonel  Gopal  Singh  or 
Major  Mohammed  Khan  gives  the  word  of  command  in 
what  is  supposed  to  be  the  English  language.  But  to  a 
young  prince  of  spirit  the  whole  affair  must  doubtless 
seem  silly  and  theatrical,  and  perhaps  no  more  than  a 
proof  of  humiliation  and  dependence.  A  man  sprung 
from  generations  of  warlike  ancestors,  who  won  their 
way  and  held  it  by  the  sword,  must  chafe  at  the  restric- 
tion which  binds  him  down  to  an  army  of  stage  supers 
and  provides  no  worthy  profession  for  the  cadets  and  col- 
lateral branches  of  his  royal  house.  That  was  one  of  the 
reasons  why  the  Maharaja  aforetime  gave  himself  to 
unworthy  courses.  He  '  chewed  bhang  and  toyed  with 
dancing  girls,'  as  described  by  Macaulay.  What  else  was 
he  to  do,  when  we  had  made  his  government  an  unreality, 
and  his  army  a  farce? 

But  we  are  now  opening  to  him  a  wider  avenue  of 
activity.  We  allow  him  to  raise  a  contingent  for  the 
Imperial  Service  Corps,  which  he  may  make  as  efficient 
and  soldier-like  as  he  can.  The  I.S.C.  was  instituted 
during  Lord  Dufferin's  viceroyalty,  and  it  has  been  much 
improved  and  enlarged  during  the  past  few  years.  It  is 
intended  to  associate  the  feudatories  with  the  defence  of 
India,  in  a  genuine  sense,  and  to  allow  them  to  maintain 
small  bodies  of  troops,  armed,  equipped,  and  trained,  as 
nearly  as  possible  like  those  in  the  direct  employment  of 
the  Crown.     Each  unit  of  the  Imperial  Service  Corps  is 


HIS  HIGHNESS   THE   MAHARAJA  129 

stationed  'in  the  native  State  to  which  it  belongs.  It  is 
part  of  the  army  of  that  State,  and  it  is  paid  for  out  of 
its  revenues ;  the  officers  are  the  Maharaja's  own  subjects, 
holding  their  commissions  from  him.  All  that  the  Indian 
Government  requires  is  that  there  shall  be  a  British 
inspecting  officer,  whose  business  it  is  to  see  that  the 
force  is  kept  well  up  to  the  standard  of  our  own  Native 
Army.  It  has  modern  weapons  and  receives  the  latest 
instruction  in  drill  and  tactics ;  and  it  may  be  called 
upon  to  take  its  place  in  line  with  British  troops  when 
the  Empire  goes  to  war. 

The  Maharaja  who  decides  to  establish  an  Imperial 
Service  Corps  is  left  a  considerable  latitude  of  choice  as 
to  the  kind  of  contingent  he  will  supply.  The  horse- 
loving  Eajputs  of  Jodhpur  contribute  a  dashing  regiment 
of  lancers.  In  Bikaner,  the  desert  State,  they  have  a 
first-rate  Camel  Corps,  which  did  valuable  service  in 
Somaliland  and  China — in  the  latter  case  with  the  high- 
spirited  young  Maharaja  himself  in  command.  The 
Maharaja  of  Jaipur  contents  himself  with  a  workmanlike 
and  useful  train  of  transport  carts.  At  Gwalior,  the 
Maharaja  Scindia,  that  energetic  Indian  prototype  of  the 
German  Kaiser,  sitting  erect  on  a  magnificent  charger, 
with  waving  sabre  flashing  in  the  sunlight,  led  his  own 
Imperial  horsemen,  at  a  thundering  gallop,  past  the  Koyal 
standard.  When  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  at  Lahore,  a 
review  of  all  the  Imperial  Service  contingents  of  the 
Punjab  chiefs  was  held  at  Mian  Mir.  There  were  between 
three  and  four  thousand  troops  on  the  ground  of  all  arms, 
except  artillery — since  the  Mutiny  we  do  not  put  field- 
guns  into  native  hands — and  a  better  display  of  physique, 
good  marching  and  riding,  and  accurate  drill  could  scarcely 
be  seen  in  any  country.  There  was  little  to  choose,  so  far 
as  the  eye  could  judge,  between  the  Mohammedan  and 
Sikh  soldiers  of  Patiala  and  Kapurthala   and  the  best 


130  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

regiments  of  our  Native  Army.  And  these  contingents,  it 
must  be  remembered,  were  in  all  cases  officered  by  men 
of  their  own  state  and  people.  Colonels,  captains,  and 
subalterns  were  of  the  same  districts  and  the  same  races 
as  their  men.  Many  of  them  were  relatives  of  the 
Chief,  his  brothers,  nephews,  or  cousins,  or  members  of 
the  landowning  families  who  owed  him  feudal  allegiance. 

But  this  is  not  all  that  we  do  to  gratify  the  military 
tastes  of  our  Indian  warrior  castes.  The  young  scions  of 
the  reigning  houses  can  be  educated  at  the  Eajkumar 
colleges,  where  they  receive  a  combination  of  that  sort  of 
training  which  an  English  lad  can  get  at  a  public  school 
and  at  Sandhurst  and  Woolwich.  When  they  leave  these 
academies  they  can  join  the  Imperial  Cadet  Corps,  a  very 
select  body,  formed  entirely  of  princes  of  the  Indian 
reigning  houses,  which  was  one  of  Lord  Curzon's  happy 
thoughts.  This  squadron  of  high-born  youths  was 
happily  chosen  as  one  of  the  Prince  of  Wales's  guards 
of  honour,  and  a  very  gay  and  gallant  troop  of  young 
cavaliers  they  looked,  fit  to  be  the  escort  of  any  sovereign, 
with  their  pretty  fawn  uniforms,  their  turbans  of  tur- 
quoise blue,  and  their  saddle-cloths  made  of  the  skin  of 
the  snow-leopard.  It  is  proposed  that  some  of  these 
young  gentlemen  shall  obtain  direct  commissions  in  the 
Indian  Army.  One  of  them  has  already  been  appointed  to 
the  General  Staff,  where  they  think  extremely  well  of  him. 

The  mere  existence  of  these  corps  is  symptomatic  of 
a  certain  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  rulers  of  India 
towards  the  native  states.  It  is  a  kind  of  testimonial  to 
the  loyalty  of  the  Chiefs :  a  certificate  that  they  can  be 
safely  trusted  with  so  formidable  a  weapon  as  a  few  first- 
rate  modern  regiments,  on  the  assumption  that  it  would 
never  be  used  except  in  our  service  or  at  our  direction. 
If  we  went  to  war  with  an  European  Power  we  take  it 
for  granted  that  all  the  Imperial   Service  contingents 


C    C  {  c  c 
f  t  c  u 


c  c   c  c 

•  •«• 


HIS  HIGHNESS  THE   MAHARAJA  131 

would  vie  with  each  other  in  pressing  to  be  sent  to  the 
front.  There  they  would  be  valuable.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  could  not  afford  to  leave  thirty  or  forty  thousand 
magazine  rifles,  in  trained  native  hands,  on  the  rear  of  our 
Army  of  the  first  line.  If  the  Kajas  were  not  loyal,  if 
they  were  at  any  time  to  develop  active  disaffection,  then 
one  cannot  deny  that  these  well-drilled  troops  might  be 
a  source  of  potential  danger.  Meanwhile  we  have  un- 
doubtedly done  something  to  give  a  legitimate  outlet  to 
the  martial  instincts  of  the  '  fighting  races  '  and  their 
leaders ;  and  we  assume  that  the  Euling  Chiefs,  at  any 
season  of  stress,  will  perceive  that  their  interests  and  those 
of  the  Imperial  Government  of  India  lie  along  the  same 
line.  Are  we  justified  in  this  complacent  hypothesis  ?  It 
is  a  rather  delicate  subject  to  discuss,  and  there  is  not 
much  that  can  be  said  upon  it  with  any  profit.  Ambitious 
men,  who  have  behind  them  a  tradition  of  successful 
struggle,  may  sometimes  chafe  a  little  under  the  regime, 
which  has  substituted  safe  tranquillity  and  dignified 
subordination  for  attractive  adventure  and  undefined 
authority. 

Looking  at  the  matter  from  the  outside,  one  might  say 
that  the  ruling  families  have  no  reason  to  be  discontented 
with  the  place  assigned  to  them.  If  we  have  taken  much 
from  the  feudatory  ruler,  we  have  also  given  him  a  good 
deal.  We  have  rendered  him  secure.  His  throne  is  no 
longer  precarious.  He  can  '  sleep  well,'  like  King  Duncan, 
though  not  in  his  grave.  Treason,  domestic  broil,  foreign 
assault  '  can  touch  him  not  and  harm  him  not  again,' 
provided  he  exhibits  a  moderate  diligence  and  a  mode- 
rate good  sense  in  the  task  of  government.  We  might 
dethrone  him  ourselves,  but  we  should  allow  neither  rebel 
barons  nor  ambitious  rivals  to  overturn  him. 

Moreover,  he  has  good  assurance  that  we  have  no 
aggressive  intentions  towards  him.     If  he  were  deposed  it 

k2 


132  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

would  only  be  for  proved  misconduct,  and  even  in  that 
case  his  throne  would  not  be  forfeit.  The  time  has  gone 
by  when  the  Indian  Government  would  use  an  occasion 
of  the  kind  in  order  to  round  off  its  territory.  The  era  of 
annexation  in  the  Peninsula  is  closed,  and  we  desire  only 
to  maintain  the  political  status  quo.  If  it  becomes 
necessary  to  administer  a  native  state,  the  Government 
regards  itself  only  as  a  trustee,  acting  in  the  interests  of 
the  population,  but  with  due  regard  also  to  that  of  the 
legitimate  dynasty,  whose  right  to  be  replaced,  so  soon  as 
circumstances  permit,  is  always  acknowledged. 

A  striking  object-lesson  was  afforded  by  the  rendition 
of  Mysore.  This  old  Hindu  kingdom  was  transferred  by 
us  to  the  representatives  of  its  ancient  sovereigns  after  we 
had  conquered  it  from  Tippoo  Sultan  and  Hyder  Ali  and 
their  French  allies  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
But  the  restored  Princes  of  Arcot  had  learnt  nothing  and 
forgotten  nothing,  like  the  Bourbons,  and  they  proceeded 
to  misrule  their  recovered  domains  in  a  bad  Oriental 
fashion.  Thereupon — it  was  in  the  year  1831 — we  found 
it  imperative  to  give  them  their  conge  and  replace  them 
by  Anglo-Indian  officials.  For  fifty  years  Mysore  was  in 
commission  under  an  English  administration. 

It  was  practically  an  integral  part  of  our  own  ter- 
ritories, and  we  could  hardly  have  been  condemned  if  we 
had  forgotten  that  it  had  ever  been  anything  else.  Few 
people  in  India  could  have  imagined  that  it  would  be 
given  back  to  the  descendant  of  its  former  rulers.  The 
restoration  was  an  act  of  voluntary  justice,  carried  out 
when  the  reforms  had  been  completed,  and  when  it 
seemed  that  a  capable  Maharaja,  with  competent  native 
assistance,  could  be  safely  left  at  the  head  of  affairs. 

Mysore  has  used  its  restored  self-government  well.  It 
found  not  only  an  upright  and  well-educated  Kaja,  but 
a  Prime  Minister  of  exceptional  capacity,  and  since  1881, 


HIS  HIGHNESS   THE   MAHARAJA  133 

the  year  of  the  surrender,  it  has  been  a  model  state,  as 
excellent  a  specimen  of  administrative  efficiency  as  India 
has  to  show.  The  example  of  Mysore  has  been  valuable 
in  many  ways ;  but  it  has  been  particularly  so  by  con- 
vincing the  Indian  princes  that  we  mean  to  keep  faith 
with  them,  that  we  have  no  desire  to  extinguish  the 
qualified  independence  we  have  left  them,  and  no  wish  to 
incorporate  their  dominions  with  our  own. 

The  Indian  Government  acts  wisely  in  maintaining, 
so  far  as  it  can,  the  separate  existence  of  these  principali- 
ties. They  discharge,  or  may  discharge  under  favourable 
circumstances,  some  useful  functions  in  the  Indian  body 
politic.  Within  their  comparatively  restricted  area  it  is 
possible  to  try  experiments,  legislative,  economical,  and 
social,  which  could  with  difficulty  be  attempted  at  one 
stroke  over  the  whole  large  area  of  British  India.  The 
little  cock-boat  of  a  state,  steered  by  its  own  native  pilot 
and  crew,  might  make  the  trial  trip  into  waters  upon 
which,  if  the  navigation  prove  fortunate,  it  can  in  due 
course  be  followed  by  the  weightier  argosies.  Thus 
Mysore  can  venture  to  go  further  in  the  direction  of  a 
social  and  domestic  reform  than  the  Government  of  India 
has  cared  to  do.  It  can  raise  the  age  of  marriage  for 
women  a  full  two  years  above  the  level  at  which  it  stands 
in  British  India.  If  this  salutary  and  necessary  change 
were  made  in  one  British  province  it  would  have  to  be 
followed  in  all  the  others ;  some  fifty  million  families 
would  be  asked  to  modify  intimate  customs  and  abandon 
their  rooted  prejudices.  In  Mysore  there  is  only  a  fiftieth 
part  of  the  population  involved,  which  makes  a  difference  ; 
and  there  is  a  native  administration  concerned  in  this 
interference  with  domestic  practices,  not  a  foreign  bureau- 
cracy, which  makes  a  greater  difference  still. 

The  Mysore  Government,  again,  has  used  part  of  the 
surplus  funds  in  its  treasury  to  establish  a  great  power- 


134  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

station  at  the  Falls  of  the  river  Cauvery,  from  which 
electric  energy  is  supplied  to  the  adjacent  Kolar  Gold- 
fields  and  the  town  of  Bangalore.  The  scheme  has 
proved  successful  both  from  an  engineering  and  a  financial 
point  of  view,  and  the  Mysore  exchequer  receives  a  steady 
revenue  from  it.  But  this  bold  and  rather  speculative 
enterprise  could  hardly  have  been  initiated  by  a  British 
province  which  has  no  money  save  what  it  raises  by 
taxation,  and  which  has  to  account  to  the  Government  of 
India  and  to  Parliament  for  every  penny  it  spends.  The 
greater  elasticity  of  native  rule  allows  scope  for  various 
tentative  essays,  and  it  also  supplies  an  element  of  variety 
amid  the  level  uniformity  of  the  Anglo-Indian  system  of 
administration. 

In  this  and  similar  ways  an  enlightened  prince,  on  the 
gadi  of  an  Indian  native  state,  can  find  great  possibilities 
of  usefulness  if  he  cares  to  grasp  them.  A  philosopher  on 
a  throne  could  hardly  desire  a  more  favourable  situation 
for  the  exercise  of  his  abilities  and  his  benevolence.  He 
has  most  of  the  advantages  of  despotism  without  its 
customary  discomforts  and  dangers.  The  cares  of  diplo- 
macy, the  burdens  of  military  defence,  are  taken  off  his 
hands  by  his  Imperial  guarantors.  He  can  ignore  the 
peril  of  invasion,  and  it  is  his  own  fault  if  he  is  vexed  by 
intrigue.  Within  his  borders  we  leave  him  a  large 
measure  of  freedom.  He  can  appoint  his  own  ministers 
and  officials ;  and  if  he  has  to  pay  some  deference  to  the 
views  of  the  Kesident  he  is,  on  the  other  hand,  untroubled 
by  a  parliament  or  an  electorate.  He  has  a  docile,  loyal, 
and  rather  primitive,  people  within  his  own  little  ring- 
fence,  and  he  can  find  ready  to  hand  ample  opportunities 
for  adding  to  their  well-being.  His  own  station  is  assured, 
and  should  be  extremely  agreeable.  He  occupies  a  fine 
position  ;  he  has  honours  and  dignities  ;  he  is  treated  like 
a  reigning   sovereign,  with  salutes   of   artillery,  cavalry 


HIS    HIGHNESS   THE   MAHAKAJA  135 

escorts,  and  other  tributes  of  respect,  when  he  enters 
British  territory ;  and  he  need  only  manage  his  finances 
with  some  approach  to  economy  and  avoid  the  grosser 
forms  of  personal  extravagance  to  have  plenty  of  spending 
money,  with  few  of  the  anxieties  which  usually  attend 
the  possession  of  wealth  in  an  Eastern  society. 

For  these  benefits  he  should  be  grateful.  Perhaps  he 
is ;  but  he  has  his  grievances.  They  are  apt  to  bulk  large 
when  he  is  not  on  good  terms  with  the  political  officer 
appointed  unto  him  by  the  Government.  The  '  political ' 
is  not  always  the  most  tactful  of  human  beings.  Those 
who  are  selected  by  the  India  Office  to  manage  the 
greater  states,  which  come  under  its  direct  authority,  are 
usually  able  men.  But  the  Provincial  Governments  nomi- 
nate Agents  and  Besidents  to  their  own  groups  of  minor 
states,  and  one  does  not  invariably  hear  the  best  accounts 
of  these  gentlemen.  The  position  does  not  attract  the 
most  capable  and  ambitious  officials  of  the  Civil  Service, 
because  there  is  no  great  prospect  of  promotion  in  it.  An 
aspiring  young  civilian,  who  hopes  for  a  Lieutenant- 
Governorship  or  a  Chief  Commissionership  or  a  post  on 
the  Council,  as  the  crown  of  his  career,  will  not  consent 
to  spend  his  active  life  in  an  unimportant  Besidency. 
The  Department  has  to  fall  back  on  a  military  man  who 
has  taken  to  civil  employment,  or  it  selects  a  possibly 
second-rate  member  of  the  bureaucracy.  He  may  be 
fussy  or  pretentious,  or  pompous,  or  merely  ignorant  and 
idle.  There  are  political  officers  to  whom  most  of  these 
epithets  could  be  justifiably  applied.  When  such  an 
individual  has  to  manage  a  subtle,  intriguing,  and  irri- 
table native  princeling,  at  once  proud,  sensitive,  and 
suspicious,  the  machinery  is  not  likely  to  work  with 
smoothness. 

At  the  best  it  does  not  run  easily.     The  more  we 
educate  and  Europeanise  the  native  gentlemen,  the  less 


136  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

do  tbey  like  being  held  in  leading-strings.  The  Eaja 
feels  that  his  brain  is  at  least  equal  to  that  of  a  middle- 
aged,  middle-class  Colonel,  and  he  is  quite  aware  that 
this  diplomatist  is  nobody  in  particular  when  he  goes 
back  to  his  own  country.  In  the  old  days  that  fact  was 
hidden  from  him.  Mysterious  beings  were  emitted  from 
out  of  the  darkness  of  an  unknown  land.  They  might 
be  princes  themselves,  or  great  councillors  of  state  whose 
seat  was  on  the  steps  of  the  Imperial  Throne,  for  what 
his  Highness  knew. 

But  the  mystery  has  been  stripped  bare.  The  Maha- 
raja goes  'Home/  he  knows  all  about  our  politics,  he 
reads  our  newspapers,  he  assimilates  even  the  valuable 
and  informing  society  paragraphs.  Fussy  colonels 
impress  him  no  longer.  He  takes  them  at  about  the 
valuation  of  their  own  countrymen,  which  is  not  exalted ; 
and  if  he  is  young,  able,  ambitious,  progressive,  he  is 
inclined  to  ask  why  he  should  not  be  permitted  to  manage 
his  own  affairs  and  those  of  his  people  without  perpetual 
and  patronising  supervision.  'You  are  making  men  of 
us,'  said  one  young  Europeanising  prince  to  an  English 
friend  of  mine,  who  had  been  admitted  to  his  confidence. 
'  Isn't  it  about  time  to  leave  off  treating  us  like  children  ? ' 
The  suggestion  conveyed  in  these  words  may  be  called 
unreasonable,  when  we  consider  that  some  of  these  Kuling 
Chiefs  would  now  be  throneless  and  landless  outcasts  but 
for  our  protection.  Yet  the  sentiment  exists,  and  it  would 
be  foolish  to  pretend  that  it  does  not.  His  Highness  the 
Maharaja  makes  his  account,  like  a  sensible  man,  with 
things  as  they  are,  especially  as  they  really  work  out 
remarkably  well  for  him.  But  we  need  not  suppose  that 
he  is  entirely  satisfied  with  them,  or  that  he  would  fail 
to  seize  an  opportunity  for  modifying  them  if  it  came 
conveniently  in  his  way. 


137 


CHAPTEE  X 
ON  THE  FEONTIEE 

The  peoples  of  India  are,  speaking  generally,  a  docile  and 
a  peaceable  folk.  The  great  majority  of  them  are  easily 
taught  to  abstain  from  strife  and  bloodshed.  They  do  not 
like  killing  man  or  other  animals,  even  in  self-defence  or 
for  food.  Most  of  them  are  habitual  vegetarians ;  many 
are  forbidden  by  their  religion  to  take  life  under  any 
circumstances.  Though  Buddhism  was  driven  out  of  the 
Peninsula  by  the  Brahmans,  it  left  its  impress  upon  the 
dominant  sect  in  a  theoretical  aversion  from  violence  of 
all  kinds.  The  '  mild  Hindu '  is  not  a  mere  figment  of 
the  imagination.  The  Hindu,  when  excited,  can  become 
wild  rather  than  mild.  But,  taken  in  the  mass,  he  is 
assuredly  not  a  first-class  fighting-man.  He  will  endure 
oppression,  or  endeavour  to  counter  it  by  subtlety  and 
craft,  rather  than  resent  it  openly.  His  tendency  is  to 
obey  authority,  even  when  wrongly  exercised.  In  fact, 
he  is  a  highly  governable  person. 

If  it  were  not  so,  our  task  would  be  difficult  to  the 
verge  of  impossibility.  As  it  is,  though  we  hold  India  by 
force,  that  force  itself  is,  in  point  of  numbers,  almost 
contemptible.  The  Indian  army  is  much  the  smallest  in 
the  world  in  comparison  with  the  size  of  the  country.  In 
Germany  there  is  one  soldier,  actual  or  potential,  for  about 
every  twenty  civilians,  women  and  children  included ;  in 
France  there  is  one  among  twelve ;  even  in  the  United 
Kingdom  at  least  one  person  in  forty  or  fifty  has  been 


138  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

trained,  more  or  less,  to  the  use  of  arms.  The  population 
of  India  is  close  on  three  hundred  millions,  and  the 
troops  of  the  King-Emperor,  Imperial  Service  Corps  and 
all,  total  up  to  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  ;  that 
is  to  say,  one  soldier  for  every  twelve  hundred  persons. 

Naturally,  the  military  profession  is  not  much  in 
evidence  in  the  greater  part  of  the  Peninsula.  It  is  as  if 
the  army,  let  us  say,  of  Belgium  or  Switzerland  had  to  do 
duty  for  the  whole  of  Western  Europe,  from  Lapland 
to  Sicily.  There  are  large  tracts  of  India  where  a  soldier 
is  never  seen,  and  there  must  be  millions  of  peasants  who 
do  not  set  eyes  on  a  military  uniform  from  one  year's  end 
to  another.  Yet  the  experts  assure  us  that  these  unguarded 
tracts  are  perfectly  safe,  and  that  over  the  greater  part 
of  them  rebellion  is  as  unlikely  as  it  would  be  in  Bedford- 
shire, and  a  serious  disturbance  beyond  the  power  of  the 
police  to  handle  almost  equally  improbable.  We  keep  a 
few  troops  in  cantonments  near  the  large  cities,  where 
there  are  European  residents  and  a  possibly  turbulent 
mob ;  but  even  this  is  thought  by  many  soldiers  to  be  a 
superfluous  sacrifice  to  the  tragic  memories  of  the  Mutiny. 
The  New  School  would  like  to  take  the  regiments  away 
from  the  enervating  plains  altogether,  trusting  to  the 
railway  to  truck  them  down  again  when  needed,  and 
quartering  the  troops  upon  the  frontier  and  the  districts 
adjacent,  where  the  great  wars  for  the  mastery  of  India 
will  be  waged  in  the  future  as  they  have  been  waged  in 
the  past. 

It  is  to  the  far  North- West  that  you  must  go  to  see 
the  flower  of  the  Anglo-Indian  army,  and  the  men  who 
hold  the  sword  of  Britain  in  the  East.  You  see  it  best 
of  all  near  the  point  of  the  blade,  the  tongue  of  land 
thrust  up  into  the  mountains  from  which  the  invaders 
of  India  have  so  often  dropped.  Peshawar  lies  a  little 
back  from  the  extremity,  a  town  of  soldiers,  and  where 


ON   THE  FRONTIER  139 

the  soldier  rules.  Elsewhere  the  civilian  bureaucrat  is 
omnipotent ;  here  he  is  subordinate  to  the  warrior  caste. 
The  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  North- West  Frontier 
Province  is  a  military  officer,  and  so  are  his  principal 
assistants.  For  the  whole  district  is  like  a  fortress  with 
the  ramparts  manned,  or  like  a  ship  of  war  cleared  for 
action.  Even  in  peace  time  it  is  always  on  guard.  There 
is  a  simmer  of  unrest  in  the  very  air,  and  you  feel  it  as 
you  come  up  from  the  busy  tranquil  toiling  Hindustan 
down  below. 

Much  study  of  maps  and  books  at  home  may  give 
you  some  idea  of  what  the  Borderland  is  like,  in  its 
geographical  and  political  aspects ;  but  its  true  character 
is  not  revealed  till  you  reach  that  colossal  mountain 
rampart  which  shuts  off  India  from  the  mainland  of 
Asia.  The  frontier  is  a  broad  irregular  zone  of  broken 
earth,  tossed  into  frowning  hills,  or  gashed  by  deep  and 
sinuous  valleys,  through  which  the  watercourses  cut  their 
way  towards  the  great  plains  and  the  sea.  In  the  north 
the  barrier  spreads  out  to  more  than  the  breadth  of 
France,  and  takes  in  Kashmir  and  Chitral  and  the  Pamir 
country,  till  it  loses  itself  in  the  towering  masses  of  the 
Himalayas ;  to  the  south  it  flattens  and  widens  again, 
till  it  covers  the  area  of  British  Baluchistan,  now  solidly 
held  by  our  soldiers  and  engineers  as  an  outlying  bastion 
to  command  and  turn  the  whole  line.  Here  we  have  made 
our  strong  place  of  arms  at  Quetta,  a  fortress  which  could 
defy  modern  artillery ;  and  we  have  carried  the  railway 
almost  to  the  border  of  Afghanistan,  so  that,  if  an  invader 
should  attempt  to  press  through  the  Amir's  territory,  we 
could  pour  troops  into  Kandahar,  and  strike  his  advancing 
columns  upon  the  flank. 

In  its  central  portion,  where  it  faces  the  Punjab  and 
Scinde,  the  frontier  zone  narrows  down,  and  India  and 
Afghanistan  are  joined  by  the  Khyber,  and  further  south 


140  A  VISION   OF   INDIA 

by  the  Gomal  and  Kuram  Passes,  which  pierce  the  dividing 
ridge.  All  this  vast  tract  of  rough  country  has  been 
peopled  from  time  immemorial  by  clans  of  wild  High- 
landers, hardy,  independent,  quarrelsome,  and  militant  as 
any  mountaineers  in  the  world.  The  tribes  differ  much 
among  themselves ;  and  while  the  Hazaras  and  Baluchis  are 
fairly  dependable  and  amenable  to  control,  the  Afridis  are 
difficult  to  manage  and  the  Mahsud  Waziris,  who  could 
call  out  thirty  thousand  fighting  men  or  more,  are 
normally  in  a  state  of  turbulence  and  internecine  warfare. 
These  hillmen  belong  to  the  fighting  races.  They 
have  been  raiders  and  warriors  from  the  beginning, 
pursuing  each  other  with  fierce  blood-feuds  and  savage 
hereditary  vendettas,  and  lifting  cattle  impartially  from 
the  Afghan  valleys  and  the  Indian  plains,  like  Scott's 
freebooter,  who 

stole  the  beeves  that  made  his  broth, 
From  England  and  from  Scotland  both. 

In  1893  a  joint  British  and  Afghan  Commission 
marked  out  the  '  Durand  line,'  which  makes  the  frontier 
strip  nominally  Indian  territory  up  to  the  Afghan 
boundary.  In  reality,  it  is  still  abandoned  to  the  clans- 
men, who  carry  on  their  feuds  and  contests,  tribe  against 
tribe,  village  against  village,  as  their  fathers  did.  We 
should  be  well  content  if  they  would  confine  themselves 
to  these  pastimes,  so  long  as  they  left  the  communications 
uninterrupted  and  abstained  from  interfering  with  our 
peaceable  subjects. 

But  even  this  compromise  cannot  be  maintained 
without  constant  friction.  We  have  arrived  at  a  good 
understanding  with  certain  headmen  and  have  made  them 
and  their  levies  responsible  for  keeping  the  peace  of  their 
own  districts.  But  some  of  the  chiefs  are  doubtful,  and 
some  of  the  tribes  have  no  chiefs  whose  authority  they 


ON  THE   FRONTIER  141 

respect.  Just  now  we  are  on  fair  terms  with  the  Afridis, 
among  whom  we  have  raised  an  excellent  and  disciplined 
force  for  the  policing  of  the  Khyber.  Other  clans  are 
perennially  restless.  In  1896  there  was  a  great  rising  of 
many  confederated  tribes,  acting  temporarily  in  unison; 
and  the  Indian  Army  has  seldom  found  a  harder  task  than 
that  of  cornering  these  tough  mountaineers  among  their 
glens  and  gorges,  and  beating  them  into  a  reluctant  sub- 
mission. Few  people  at  home  realised  what  the  Tirah  cam- 
paign meant,  or  knew  how  near  we  came  to  being  swept 
out  of  the  frontier  altogether.  The  peace  of  the  border 
is  still  extremely  precarious.  No  longer  ago  than  1902 
we  had  twenty  thousand  men  engaged  in  blockading  the 
Mahsuds,  with  the  object  of  exacting  restitution  for  the 
outrages  they  had  committed.  We  levied  our  fine  and 
withdrew  the  troops.  But  the  lesson  was  imperfectly 
learnt ;  and  all  the  time  I  was  in  India  the  talk  among 
soldiers  was  of  another  '  punitive  expedition,'  which  may 
easily  become  a  serious  campaign  before  it  is  over. 

In  the  fringe  of  country  that  adjoins  this  perturbed 
tract,  where  the  rifle  and  the  long  jezail  are  seldom  mute 
for  any  length  of  time,  our  officers  sleep,  so  to  speak,  with 
their  arms  in  their  hands.  Lawless  deeds,  even  when 
there  is  no  formal  trouble  with  the  tribesmen,  may  be 
expected  at  any  moment.  A  few  days  before  the  Prince 
arrived  at  Peshawar,  a  frontier  picket  had  been  attacked, 
several  sepoys  had  been  killed  and  wounded,  and  some 
rifles  were  carried  away  ;  and  about  three  weeks  after  the 
Royal  visitors  left  an  armed  band  made  a  sudden  raid 
on  a  village  a  few  miles  from  Peshawar  itself.  The 
episode  is  thus  instructively  explained  by  one  of  the 
Indian  newspapers :  *  The  raiders  are  said  to  have  been 
Afridis,  and  their  leader  the  notorious  outlaw  Gafar,  who 
was  already  wanted  by  the  police  for  many  other  misdeeds. 
In  Banamani   is  the  residence  of  a  well-known  Pathan 


142  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

contractor,  by  name  Wali  Khan ;  and  as  the  simple-minded 
Afridi  connects  contracts  with  wealth,  it  was  supposed 
that  a  raid  on  his  house  would  yield  a  good  haul.  So 
Gafar,  taking  advantage  of  a  dark  night,  led  the  attack 
on  Wali  Khan's  house  in  true  military  style.  But  it  was 
a  case  of  Greek  meeting  Greek.  Wali  Khan  was  more 
than  prepared  for  the  kindly  attentions  of  Gafar  and  his 
gang.  The  report  (from  all  accounts  a  true  one)  is  that 
Gafar  and  three  of  his  men  fell  to  the  valiant  contractor's 
gun,  and  so  the  raid  failed.  It  appears  that  six  of  the 
marauders  have  been  captured.'  Obviously  a  region  in 
which  contractors  play  their  game  in  this  warlike  fashion 
breeds  a  different  kind  of  trader  from  the  pacific  townsmen 
and  home-loving  cultivators  of  the  more  settled  interior 
districts. 

The  moral  change  is  as  great  as  the  physical,  and 
that  is  marked  enough.  In  this  far  northern  region  we 
come  back  to  the  northern  winter.  There  is  a  savage 
bite  in  the  frost-laden  morning  wind  which  sets  you  long- 
ing for  the  open  grates  and  blazing  hearth-fires  of  home ; 
and  though  the  sun  may  burn  strongly  for  an  hour  or 
two  at  midday,  the  mercury  runs  down  thirty  degrees 
at  dusk,  and  in  your  tent  or  draughty  bungalow  you 
shiver  under  your  rugs  and  blankets.  The  unwary 
voyager,  coming  out  with  only  thin  flannels,  to  match 
his  conception  of  the  Indian  climate  at  all  seasons,  finds 
himself  hurrying  to  the  bazaar,  and  is  thankful  for  the 
poshtin,  the  coat  of  sheepskin  and  embroidered  yellow 
leather,  which  he  can  buy  for  a  few  rupees. 

It  is  a  country  that  straightens  a  man's  back  and 
strings  up  his  muscles.  There  is  no  softness  in  the  town, 
the  people,  the  atmosphere  of  Peshawar.  We  have  left 
the  region  of  bright  colours  and  smooth  faces  behind  us 
the  gay  cotton  robes,  the  green,  and  orange,  and  crimson 
turbans  of  Rajputana,  the  shrewd  Marwari  merchants  and 


ON  THE  FRONTIER  143 

the  sleek  Hindu  tradesmen.  When  the  Prince  of  Wales 
held  his  first  reception  at  Peshawar  we  had  a  scene  till 
then  unfamiliar  to  us  in  India.  Here  was  no  galaxy  of 
corpulent  notables,  shining  in  silks  and  brocaded  satins, 
and  hung  round  with  jewels.  The  Border  chiefs,  who 
offered  their  packet  of  gold  coins,  or  put  forward  their 
sword-hilts  for  the  Prince  to  touch,  did  not  make  a 
decorative  group,  if  judged  by  their  costumes.  Most  of 
them  were  plainly,  some  were  even  shabbily,  dressed  ;  and 
they  stumbled  into  the  Eoyal  presence,  these  wild  men 
of  the  hills,  with  none  of  the  self-confident  ease  of  the 
down-country  rajas.  I  noticed  that  not  one  of  them 
paid  the  least  attention  to  the  Eoyal  lady  sitting  beside 
the  Prince ;  indeed,  they  seemed  too  nervous  to  salute 
her,  though,  perhaps,  being  Mohammedans,  they  might 
have  deemed  it  contrary  to  etiquette  to  recognise  her 
presence  in  any  way.  They  looked  as  if  they  would  have 
been  far  more  in  their  element  leading  their  tribesmen  in 
a  foray  against  a  neighbouring  clan,  or  lurking  among  the 
rocks  to  cut  off  a  convoy.  Both  occupations  are  familiar 
to  most  of  them.  If  they  were  not  decorative,  they  were 
eminently  interesting :  tall  and  sinewy,  with  fierce  keen 
eyes,  they  moved  with  the  step  of  the  mountaineer  and 
the  unconscious  dignity  of  men  sprung  from  generations 
of  free  and  fighting  ancestors. 

Just  now  our  frontier  officials  have  a  good  under- 
standing with  these  chiefs,  who  are  helping  to  guard  the 
roads  through  the  mountains,  and  are  doing  their  best 
to  keep  their  people  from  interfering  with  traders  and 
travellers.  But  their  own  feuds  are  carried  on  ener- 
getically, and  life  is  ruthlessly  sacrificed.  At  the  very 
moment  when  the  Prince  was  at  Peshawar  two  of  the 
tribes  were  at  war,  though  they  had  very  courteously 
agreed  on  a  week's  truce  so  that  his  Eoyal  Highness 
might  not  be  incommoded  in   his  journey  through   the 


144  A    VISION   OF  INDIA 

Khyber  Pass.  In  our  passage  along  that  famous  defile 
we  could  see  the  little  shelter-trenches  up  the  hillside 
which  the  belligerents  had  dug  for  the  greater  convenience 
of  pursuing  their  warlike  operations.  In  a  country  like 
this  perpetual  vigilance  is  required.  When  the  Prince 
drove  through  the  streets  of  Peshawar  to  the  Ghor  Kattri, 
where  General  Avitabile,  in  the  days  of  Ranjit  Singh, 
used  to  have  his  weekly  hangings,  the  streets  were  guarded 
by  the  Black  Watch,  the  Gordons,  and  the  37th  Dogras. 

The  Highlanders  and  the  Hindu  troops  stood  in  a  close 
line,  and  behind  them  were  rows  of  tall  Pathans,  gaunt 
and  bony,  with  keen  eyes  and  vulturine  Semitic  beaks. 
The  soldiers  had  ball-cartridge  in  their  pouches,  and 
the  people  were  kept  sternly  from  coming  too  near  the 
edge  of  the  pavement.  These  precautionary  measures 
were  not  directed  against  any  organised  disaffection,  which 
nobody  for  a  moment  expected.  But  it  was  necessary  to 
provide  against  the  contingency  of  an  isolated  outbreak  of 
infuriated  fanaticism.  An  Afghan  Mussulman  may  go 
Ghazi  at  any  moment.  When  he  does  so,  he  becomes 
the  most  dangerous  creature  that  walks  the  earth — not 
so  much  a  lunatic  as  a  demoniac,  under  the  influence  of 
an  irresistible  hypnotic  suggestion  which  impels  him  first 
to  kill  an  infidel  and  then  to  get  killed  himself,  in  order 
that  he  may  go  straight  to  Paradise.  Even  when  the 
Border  in  a  general  way  is  quite  tranquil,  a  single  Ghazi 
may  break  out  and  destroy  a  valuable  life  or  two  before 
he  can  be  shot  or  knocked  on  the  head  like  a  mad  dog. 

An  officer  of  one  of  the  local  corps  told  me  that  he 
never  took  the  short  ride  from  Peshawar  to  Jamrud,  which 
is  regular  British  territory,  and  ordinarily  undisturbed, 
without  a  loaded  revolver  on  his  person ;  for  a  Ghazi 
might  pop  out  even  there,  and  he  did  not  wish  to  afford 
the  public  the  undignified  spectacle  of  an  Englishman 
bolting  before  a  screaming  fanatic.     Against  the  Ghazi 


ON  THE  FRONTIER  145 

the  white  man  unprovided  with  firearms  has  no  chance. 
He  can  only  run  away. 

So  the  Prince  and  Princess  were  well  guarded  all  the 
time  they  were  on  the  frontier.  Even  at  the  garden- 
party  in  the  grounds  of  Government  House  precautions 
were  unobtrusively  observed.  It  was  odd  to  notice  that 
the  attendants  and  Eoyal  servants  were  armed,  at  what 
was  otherwise  a  very  English-seeming  entertainment. 
The  menace  of  the  Frontier  was  forgotten  as  one  paced 
the  smooth  lawns  behind  Government  House,  dotted  with 
groups  of  ladies  in  charming  summer  dresses,  with  officers 
in  uniform,  and  with  frock-coated  civilians,  listening  to 
the  military  bands  and  the  pipers  of  the  Highlanders. 
Peshawar  is  characteristically  Asiatic,  but  its  European 
quarters  have  a  homelike  air.  The  cantonments  are 
among  the  most  delightful  in  India,  with  their  wide 
avenues  lined  with  trees  that  keep  their  greenery  in  this 
northern  climate,  and  their  bungalows  set  in  gardens 
where  the  English  flowers  bloom. 

It  is  strange  to  pass  from  the  pleasant  umbrageous 
suburbs  to  the  Mohammedan  city,  with  its  flat-roofed 
houses  of  sun-dried  brick,  looking  down  from  loop-holed 
windows  and  jealously  latticed  casements  upon  the  stream 
of  mixed  Asian  humanity — Afghan,  Afridi,  Mongolian, 
Hindu — flowing  through  the  narrow  streets  and  the  dark 
alleys  in  which  a  European  is  warned  that  it  is  wiser  not 
to  walk  after  dusk. 

And  whenever  you  cast  your  eyes  upwards  in  Peshawar, 
the  dragon-teeth  of  the  hills  are  before  you.  From  the 
gate  of  the  Ghor  Kattri,  or  the  roof  of  the  barracks,  or 
the  bastions  of  the  fortress,  the  mountain-barrier  fronts 
you,  grey-green  in  the  morning,  golden  brown  in  the  day, 
glowing  with  rose  and  reddened  umber  at  sunset ;  and 
Peshawar  is  an  historic  city,  because  it  faces  the  breach 
in  that  wall  of  sandstone  and  shales  by  which  the  men 

L 


146  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

of  the  north  have  been  marching  upon  the  plains  of  India 
since  history  began.  The  Scythian,  the  Tartar,  the  Arab, 
the  Moghul,  the  Persian  have  come  that  way.  The 
Afghan,  perhaps  the  Muscovite,  would  swoop  through  it 
to-morrow  if  the  sentinels  of  Peshawar  were  withdrawn. 

Yet  there  is  little  to  see  in  the  Khyber  Pass  itself,  and 
no  memorial  of  all  the  triumphant  or  dejected  pilgrims  who 
have  traversed  its  stony  sands.  From  Peshawar  the  rail- 
way leads  across  some  dozen  miles  of  rough  pasture  and 
arable  land,  which  is  dead  level  plain  to  the  very  foot  of 
the  hills.  Here  stands  the  fort  of  Jamrud,  looking  like  a 
great  battleship  anchored  at  the  mouth  of  the  dangerous 
strait.  The  road,  which  English  engineers  have  made, 
goes  winding  up  between  barren  hills,  treeless  and  bare  to 
the  summits  which  Pollock  crowned  with  his  infantry 
and  batteries,  when  he  forced  the  Pass  on  his  way  to 
relieve  Jellalabad  in  1842.  At  intervals  there  is  one  of 
those  fortified  farms,  with  round  towers,  like  the  peels  of 
the  Scottish  border,  in  which  the  women  and  the  cattle 
can  be  placed  at  night. 

Nothing  tells  more  strongly  of  the  insecurity  of  the 
country  than  these  embattled  dwellings.  After  the  great 
tribal  rising  in  1897,  when  we  were  driven  clean  out  of 
the  Khyber  by  a  sudden  wave  of  Moslem  fanaticism, 
many  of  the  towers  were  demolished ;  but  we  have  per- 
mitted new  ones  to  be  erected,  nor,  indeed,  could  we  well 
forbid  it,  since  we  do  not  hold  the  Afridi  country,  but  have 
only  preserved  a  right  of  way  through  the  Pass  itself.  We 
guard  the  road,  and  punish  any  breach  of  the  peace  fifty 
yards  on  either  side  of  it.  Beyond  this  narrow  ribbon 
we  do  not  assert  our  authority,  and  if  the  tribesmen  shoot 
each  other  outside  the  limit  we  make  it  no  business  of 
ours.  Along  the  Pass  itself  British  forts,  crenellated  and 
machicolated,  with  loopholed  walls  and  steel  shutters 
for   protection  against   musketry  fire  at   close  quarters, 


ON  THE  FRONTIER  147 

alternate  with  the  native  strongholds.  At  Ali  Masjid,  in 
the  middle  of  the  valley,  which  was  sacked  by  the  tribes- 
men in  1897,  there  are  now  barracks  and  a  permanent 
garrison.  Here  the  mountains  rise  higher  and  the  scenery 
gains  in  boldness ;  and  thence  onward,  past  gorge  and 
jutting  mass  of  rock  and  deep  chasm,  the  skilful  spirals 
of  the  road  twist  and  turn,  till  it  opens  upon  a  fine 
basin,  in  the  midst  of  which  stands  Landi  Kotal,  on  the 
edge  of  Afghanistan,  the  last  outpost  of  Britain  on  the 
road  from  Central  Asia. 

The  Wardens  of  the  Marches — that  is  to  say,  the  Chief 
Commissioner  of  the  North-West  Frontier  Province  and 
the  Political  Officer  of  the  Khyber  district — had  resolved 
that  no  risks  should  be  taken  when  the  Prince  drove 
through  the  Pass.  In  the  ordinary  way  the  Khyber  is 
guarded  twice  a  week  ;  sentries  are  posted  and  pickets  are 
out  on  those  two  days,  and  then  it  is  safe  for  the  tourist  to 
take  his  tonga  through,  and  for  the  great  caravan  from 
Central  Asia,  with  its  train  of  laden  Bactrian  camels,  its 
horses,  and  its  pack-mules,  to  plough  slowly  over  the  sand 
to  Peshawar  Bazaar  and  Bailway  Station.  On  this  Monday 
in  December,  the  royal  cortege  went  by  under  the  watch- 
ful eyes  of  a  small  army  of  troops.  There  was  a  line  of 
sentries  all  the  way  along  a  few  yards  above  the  roadside, 
and  if  the  eye  travelled  upwards,  on  every  conspicuous 
height  or  jutting  fragment  of  rock,  it  picked  out  the  khaki 
uniforms  and  glinting  bayonets  of  other  sentries.  Minute 
figures,  perched  two  thousand  feet  in  the  air,  were  pre- 
senting arms  to  the  procession  that  must  have  looked  like 
a  train  of  toy  carriages  in  the  dusty  thread  of  road  below 
them.  These  were  the  men  of  the  Khyber  Bifles.  The 
whole  seventeen  hundred  of  them  were  on  duty  that 
day ;  and  we  knew,  though  we  could  not  see  them,  that 
an  equal  number  of  the  tribal  levies  formed  an  outer 
cordon  on  the  farther  heights  beyond. 

l2 


148  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

If  the  Prince  was  well  defended,  his  defenders  them- 
selves were  those  who  had  been,  many  of  them,  fierce 
enemies  of  the  rule  and  the  civilisation  he  represents. 
There  was  an  interesting  scene  at  AH  Masjid,  where  the 
maliks  or  headmen  of  the  Zakka  Khel,  the  Kubri  Khel, 
the  Sipah,  and  other  wild  clans,  assembled  to  offer  their 
nazar  of  sheep  and  honey  to  the  Prince,  and  to  assure 
him  of  their  loyalty.  *  Though  I  am  blind,'  said  one  fine 
old  sightless  patriarch,  'I  can  touch  the  hand  of  my 
king.'  The  Khyber  Kifles  themselves  are  Afridis,  who 
have  been  taken  into  our  pay  and  drilled  and  disciplined 
under  our  officers.  It  is  the  policy  which  made  the  Black 
Watch  and  the  Gordons  out  of  the  caterans  and  cattle- 
raiders  of  the  Scottish  Highlands,  and  it  seems  to  be 
succeeding  almost  as  well.  A  handful  of  young  English 
officers  are  turning  the  savages  into  first-rate  British 
soldiers — orderly,  obedient,  and  proud  of  their  service. 
When  you  look  at  these  admirable  battalions  of  disci- 
plined infantry,  with  their  two  squadrons  of  smart  cavalry, 
you  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  these  are  the  own  brothers 
and  cousins  of  the  long-haired  picturesque  barbarians 
who  come  out  from  their  hamlets  to  stare  at  the  Koyal 
travellers. 

And  the  men  who  have  done  this  thing  ?  We  saw 
some  of  them  at  Landi  Kotal,  by  the  Afghan  end  of  the 
Pass.  It  is  a  desolate  place  enough,  this  lonely  sentry- 
box  on  the  Empire's  rim.  All  round  it  are  the  brown 
bare  mountains,  spotted  with  stunted  trees  and  wispy 
bushes  of  camel-thorn ;  in  front  is  Afghanistan  and  the 
unknown  dangers  beyond  ;  behind,  the  long  sandy  path 
that  goes  snaking  through  the  hills  and  is  the  only  way 
back  to  India  and  home.  In  this  forlorn  abiding-place 
you  will  find  the  British  subaltern,  neat  and  cool  and 
comfortable,  a  boy  with  clear  cheeks  and  smooth  hair, 
who  handles  his  half-hundred  wind-baked  ruffians  much 


£    to 
O    co 


ffftf 
c  a  c       c  4.  (.  <  c. 

C   <    C  C    f 


ON  THE  FRONTIER  149 

as  if  they  were  the  Second  Eleven  and  he  their  captain. 
He  has  to  be  something  of  a  linguist,  an  ethnologist,  a 
cartographer,  a  diplomatist,  this  cheerful  youngster;  he 
may  be  shot  down  by  a  stray  sniper  from  the  hills  any 
morning  as  he  goes  his  rounds ;  he  has  no  one  to  talk  to 
but  three  or  four  of  his  own  comrades,  no  society,  no 
amusements,  hardly  any  leisure ;  he  is  always  drilling  his 
men,  or  teaching  them,  or  making  up  their  accounts,  or 
finding  out  what  mischief  is  brewing  among  the  villages. 
His  life  is  as  hard  and  as  busy  as  that  of  the  juniors  in 
the  ward-room  of  a  man-of-war;  he  takes  it  with  the 
same  reserved  vivacity  ;  he  keeps  his  health,  his  manners, 
his  sense  of  humour.  There  are  those  who  say  that 
the  young  British  officer  is  always  foolish  and  always 
idle.  They  should  go  and  look  at  him  in  India,  and, 
above  all,  on  the  Frontier. 


150  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 


CHAPTEE  XI 

SEPOY  AND   SOWAE 

It  is  a  truism  to  say  that  we  hold  India  by  the  sword ; 
and,  like  other  truisms,  it  is  often  forgotten  and  often  mis- 
understood.  It  does  not  mean,  for  example,  that  we  rule 
India  by  mere  armed  strength  against  the  will  of  the 
majority  of  its  population,  as  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  rules 
Macedonia.  Nor  does  it  mean  that  any  large  proportion 
of  our  subjects  are  only  deterred  from  rising  against  us 
by  the  certainty  that  we  should  shoot  them  down  if  they 
did  so.  Not  in  that  sense  do  we  govern  India  by  force. 
We  are  the  masters  of  India  because  we  control  the 
administration  and  have  got  the  executive  authority  into 
our  hands. 

Of  the  inhabitants  of  the  sub-continent,  five-sixths 
have  for  centuries  lived  and  died  under  alien  domination. 
We  are  the  substitutes  for  various  sovereigns  and  dynas- 
ties, all  of  whom  were  foreigners  as  much  as  we  are  to 
the  mass  of  those  who  yielded  them  obedience.  Two 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  the  peasantry  of  India  have 
never  known  political  freedom  and  have  never  known 
native  government.  We  took  no  independence  from  them, 
for  they  had  none.  All  that  we  have  done  has  been  to 
put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  other  despots,  whose  title,  like 
our  own,  rested  in  the  last  resort  on  military  efficiency. 
If  we  hold  India  by  the  sword,  the  point  and  edge  of 
the  weapon  are  not  turned  against  the  '  Indian  people  ' 
(which    does    not   exist),   but    against    potential  rivals, 


SEPOY   AND   SOWAR  151 

within  and  without,  who  would  wrest  it  from  us  in  order 
that  they  might  grasp  the  hilt  themselves. 

Yet  it  is  true  enough  that  the  mainstay  and  sheet- 
anchor  of  our  position  in  India  is  the  British-Indian 
Army.  If  there  is  any  force,  within  the  confines  of 
the  territory  itself,  or  within  accessible  distance,  which 
could  overcome  that  army,  our  civil  administration,  our 
public  works,  our  law,  justice,  and  education,  would  melt 
away  like  the  winter  snows  in  spring.  All  that  we  have 
done,  all  that  we  may  do,  in  India  rests  on  the  basis  of 
that  armed  power.  We  make,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  no 
ostentatious  display  of  it.  How  little  we  need  to  use  it 
against  the  vast  and  obedient  multitude  of  our  subjects 
is  shown  by  the  almost  ridiculous  paucity  of  our  garrison 
in  the  Plains.  It  may  still  be  said  to-day,  as  it  was  by 
Sir  William  Hunter  a  few  years  ago,  that  in  Bengal 
*  probably  forty  millions  of  people  go  through  life  without 
once  seeing  the  gleam  of  a  bayonet  or  the  face  of  a 
soldier.'  But  those  whose  interest  or  whose  business  it 
might  be  to  make  prey  of  that  forty  millions,  know  where 
the  bayonets  gleam;  they  are  aware  that  they  will  do 
well  not  to  look  on  the  faces  of  British  soldiers  except 
in  the  way  of  friendship. 

Fortunately,  we  have  enlisted  the  militant  instincts  of 
many  of  the  natives  in  our  own  service.  The  sword 
which  Britain  wields  in  Asia  is  largely  in  Asiatic  hands. 
It  is  not  till  you  have  seen  something  of  our  Eastern 
army  at  close  quarters  that  you  realise  the  excellence  of 
the  material  at  our  command.  Two-thirds  of  our  army 
in  India  is  native ;  the  rest  is  European.  Of  the  latter, 
not  much  need  be  said.  The  effectiveness  of  our  British 
infantry  battalions,  of  our  regiments  of  Lancers  and 
Hussars,  and  our  batteries  of  Boyal  Artillery,  depends  on 
the  administration  of  the  War  Office  at  home,  and  on  the 
quality  of  suitable  recruits  it  is  able  to  attract  to  the 


152  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

colours.  The  officers  and  men  are  not  very  different  from 
their  comrades  at  Aldershot  and  the  Curragh. 

Such  variation  as  one  can  discern  is  all  in  favour  of  the 
Indian  contingent.  For  the  regiments  have  been  picked 
and  weeded  over  before  they  leave  their  depots  ;  they  have 
ampler  space  and  latitude  for  training  and  drill ;  they 
live  under  something  much  more  nearly  resembling 
service  conditions,  and  they  are  hardened  by  abundant 
exercise  in  the  open  air.  The  Scottish  and  Irish  lads,  the 
Cockneys,  and  the  young  fellows  from  the  villages,  are 
tougher  and  stronger  and  more  soldier-like  than  they 
appear  in  the  old  country.  I  saw  the  Queen's,  the 
Dorsets,  and  the  Cameronians  march  past  in  the  great 
Keview  at  Eawul  Pindi  on  December  8,  after  days  of 
marching  and  sham-fighting  in  the  sun  and  the  awful 
Indian  dust,  and  after  bivouacking  on  the  bare  hillside  at 
night,  without  tents  or  blankets.  A  smarter,  cheerier, 
more  workmanlike,  lot  of  infantry  soldiers  it  would  be 
hard  to  find.  And  when  the  batteries  of  the  Eoyal 
Artillery  thundered  by,  every  trace  taut,  every  horse 
extended  at  a  pounding  gallop,  one  could  not  doubt  that 
the  guns  dancing  behind  the  racing  teams  would  be  un- 
commonly well  served  when  the  word  was  Action  Front. 
Excellent  troops — if  only  there  were  enough  of  them  to 
fill  up  the  gaps  when  this  admirable  first  line  begins  to 
feel  the  waste  of  war.  As  for  the  officers,  they  are  much 
like  their  brothers  and  cousins  at  home  :  clean,  pleasant, 
well-mannered,  good-tempered  youths,  sport-loving, 
manly,  a  little  'casual'  about  their  work,  but  showing 
signs  of  the  sobering  effect  produced  by  the  change  in 
their  environment.  India  is  a  serious  country  for  the 
Englishman  of  every  grade,  and  he  cannot  take  his  re- 
sponsibilities too  lightly. 

You  notice,  however,  a  perceptible  contrast  between 
the  officers  of  the  Home,  and  those  of  the  Indian,  Army. 


SEPOY   AND   SOWAR  153 

With  these  latter  the  amateurishness  of  the  British  sub- 
altern has  gone  by  the  board.  You  feel  at  once  that  you 
are  in  the  presence  of  men,  who  make  soldiering  their 
business  and  have  no  other  interest  in  life  which  can  in 
the  smallest  degree  compete  with  it.  Neither  French 
officers,  nor  Germans,  nor  Japanese  are  more  candidly 
professional.  There  is  no  affectation  of  regarding  the 
regiment  as  a  nuisance,  no  abhorrence  of  talking  shop. 
On  the  contrary,  the  Indian  subaltern  will  talk  shop  all 
day  if  you  will  let  him.  Polo,  racing,  hunting,  pig-sticking 
may  interest  him ;  but  these  things  are  his  amusements ; 
he  does  not  pretend  to  live  for  them,  and  would  not  be 
respected  by  his  fellows  if  he  did. 

His  thoughts  and  the  most  of  his  time  are  occupied 
with  his  duties,  as  is  the  case  with  his  kinsmen  who  wear 
His  Majesty's  uniform  on  board  His  Majesty's  ships  of 
war.  Indeed,  he  has  many  points  of  affinity  with  the 
naval  officer,  and  I  am  struck  by  his  resemblance  to  that 
admirable  public  servant.  Like  the  sailor,  he  is  kept  in 
order  by  those  two  potent  stimulants,  poverty  and  work. 
The  Indian  officer  is  usually  poor ;  he  would  not  be  in 
India  if  he  were  not.  A  large  majority  of  the  men  of  the 
Staff  Corps  (to  use  the  term  which  is  still  current,  though 
it  was  officially  abolished  in  1903),  I  am  assured,  live  on 
their  pay.  One  hears  cases  of  captains,  married  and  with 
children,  supporting  themselves  on  a  salary  and  allow- 
ances which,  all  told,  would  not  reach  four  hundred  a 
year ;  of  youngsters  living  on  half  that  sum, — and  this  in 
a  country  where  horses  and  many  servants  are  necessary. 

Further,  the  Indian  lieutenant,  like  his  friend  in  the 
ward-room,  cannot  play  with  his  duties.  He  is  responsible 
for  some  six-score  of  semi-savage  Pathans,  or  dour  hard- 
bitten Sikhs,  or  wild  Punjabi  Mohammedans.  He  has  no 
European  sergeants  to  take  the  rough  work  off  his  hands. 
The  oldest  bearded  native  resaldar-major,  a  gentleman 


154  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

and  a  landed  proprietor  in  his  own  district  and  a  soldier 
of  twenty  years'  service  in  the  regiment,  may  come  to 
the  boy  for  orders.  He  has  to  be  drill-instructor,  and 
riding-master,  and  musketry  expert,  and  accountant ;  and 
all  his  men,  and  their  horses,  and  their  rifles,  and,  to 
some  extent,  their  morals,  are  under  his  charge.  And  he 
toils,  so  far  as  the  climate  will  allow  him,  from  morning 
till  night. 

In  the  hot  season  there  is  not  so  much  doing,  and  it 
is  the  wise  policy  of  the  authorities  to  permit  him  to  take 
plenty  of  leave  at  this  period,  and  to  keep  in  touch  with 
European  ideas  and  military  developments  by  getting  a 
few  weeks  at  home  every  third  year  or  so.  But  in  the 
cold  weather  he  is  always  at  it.  Early-morning  parades, 
drill,  target-practice,  stable-inspections,  teaching  recruits, 
checking  accounts  for  stores  and  forage,  and  a  vast  amount 
of  office- work  (far  too  much  of  it,  some  good  judges  think), 
leave  him  little  time  for  recreation.  If  he  can  get  an 
hour  or  two  at  polo  or  hockey  in  the  afternoon,  and  now 
and  then  a  game  at  whist  or  bridge,  he  may  consider 
himself  lucky. 

The  staff  are  no  less  sedulous.  One  officer  told  me 
that  it  is  his  custom  to  begin  work  soon  after  six  in  the 
morning,  and,  except  for  his  meals  and  a  break  of  an 
hour  or  two  before  dinner,  he  is  busy  till  ten  o'clock  at 
night.  People  who  think  that  military  men  are  mainly 
occupied  in  amusing  themselves  should  see  the  officers  of 
the  Indian  Native  Army  in  camp  or  at  headquarters. 
They  cannot  afford  to  be  dissipated,  and  they  have  no 
time  to  be  idle.  But  their  work,  if  hard,  is  interesting. 
It  trains  the  character  and  the  brain,  provided  only  that 
a  man  has  an  adequate  supply  of  both  to  start  with.  If 
he  is  not  so  furnished  he  will  do  little  good  in  the  Indian 
Army,  and  it  generally  contrives  to  get  rid  of  him. 
Industry,  self-reliance,  intelligence,  a  knowledge  of  human 


SEPOY  AND   SOWAK  155 

nature,  and  a  sense  of  humour,  are  requisite  for  success 
in  that  exacting  school,  and  these  qualities  seem  to  be 
developed  there. 

An  Indian  regiment,  with  its  eight  or  nine  hundred 
bayonets,  or  its  five  or  six  hundred  sabres,  is  under  the 
charge  of  from  nine  to  thirteen  Europeans,  including  the 
colonel,  the  surgeon,  and  the  adjutant.  The  rest  are 
natives.  They  come  from  a  comparatively  limited  section 
of  the  population.  Bengal,  with  its  eighty  millions, 
hardly  supplies  a  sepoy  or  a  sowar,  Madras  very  few, 
Bombay  not  many.  The  great  majority  are  from  the 
Punjab  and  the  northern  frontier  districts  and  from  Oudh. 
They  are  members  of  the  fighting  races,  some  of  whom 
have  once  ruled  India,  while  others  would  make  a  fair 
bid  to  do  it  again,  if  they  had  the  chance.  The  Pathans 
of  the  hill  border,  the  Sikhs,  the  Dogras,  the  Kajputs,  the 
Gurkhas,  and  the  Punjabi  Mohammedans,  descendants  of 
Afghan  or  Tartar  invaders,  are  the  chief  elements.  The 
Punjabis  and  the  Pathans  believe  in  the  Prophet ;  the 
Sikhs,  Dogras,  and  Kajputs  believe  in  Vishnu  and  Siva ; 
the  Gurkhas  believe  in  nothing  in  particular  except  their 
own  officers.  In  Central  India  some  of  the  aboriginals 
have  been  drilled,  and  in  Madras  there  are  regiments  in 
which  '  Pariahs  and  Christians '  and  other  miscellaneous 
folk  are  enlisted. 

But  the  staple  of  the  Indian  Army  consists  of  these 
aforesaid  Sikhs,  Pathans,  Punjabis,  and  Gurkhas.  In  the 
old  days  there  were  mostly  *  class  regiments '  formed 
entirely  of  men  of  the  same  race  and  religion.  Since  the 
Mutiny  we  have  preferred  a  judicious  mixture,  making  up 
many  of  the  regiments  with  companies  each  drawn  from 
the  same  sect  or  tribe,  the  idea  being  generally  to  keep 
a  balance  of  Mohammedans  and  Hindus  in  the  corps. 
The  Gurkhas  are  all  class  regiments  still,  because  we  have 
the  greatest  confidence  in  the  little  yellow  Mongolians, 


156  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

who  would  not  serve  with  either  Hindus  or  Mohammedans, 
and  have  no  sort  of  respect  for  either.  The  Gurkha  deems 
himself  one  of  the  sahib-log.  He  will  not  wear  the  turban 
of  the  Asiatic  peoples,  though  he  has  no  objection  to  the 
helmet,  or  the  round  cap,  or  the  South  African  slouch 
hat,  or  any  other  hideous  headgear  of  civilised  Western 
man. 

Better  troops  than  some  of  those  belonging  to  these 
warlike  races  few  armies  in  the  world  possess.  The 
Gurkha  looks  in  all  respects  precisely  like  the  Japanese, 
and  is  as  tenacious,  as  brave,  and  as  invincibly  cheerful. 
The  Pathans  are  wiry  hillmen,  born  fighters,  and  full  of 
dash  and  mettle ;  and  the  Sikhs,  in  regard  to  physique 
and  bearing,  would  give  points  to  most  European  regi- 
ments, including  our  own  and  the  Prussian  Guards. 

Whether  these  soldiers  would  really  hold  their  own 
with  whifce  troops  no  one  can  say,  for  the  quality  of  the 
Indian  Army  has  not  been  tried  by  that  test.  But  one 
cannot  see  why  they  should  fail  under  it.  They  drill  as 
well  as  any  Europeans,  and  they  ride  and  shoot  and  march 
better  than  most.  Opinions  may  differ  as  to  the  precise 
value  of  the  tactical  and  strategical  training  they  receive. 

The  verdict  of  some  military  experts  present  during 
the  great  manoeuvres  near  Kawul  Pindi  was  not,  I  be- 
lieve, quite  favourable.  They  suggested  that  there  was 
too  much  of  the  old  Aldershot  unreality  about  the  whole 
transaction,  that  cavalry  enacted  impossible  spectacular 
charges,  that  infantry  were  tranquilly  deployed,  under  the 
fire  of  heavy  artillery,  before  impregnable  positions.  As 
to  the  supreme  administration,  as  everybody  knows,  it  has 
formed  the  subject  of  embittered  controversy  of  late,  and 
there  are  those  who  say  that  the  internal  economy  of  the 
Indian  War  Office  needs  reform  as  much  as  that  of  the 
establishments  in  Pall  Mall  and  Whitehall.  But  I  am 
sure  that  the  fifty-seven  thousand  men  who  marched  past 


SEPOY  AND  SOWAR  157 

the  Prince  of  Wales  at  the  great  review  constituted  as  fine 
a  host  as  any  nation  need  wish  to  have  when  doing  battle 
for  its  life.  The  organisation  may  need  improvement, 
but  the  material  is  not  far  short  of  the  best. 

Indeed,  the  Indian  trooper  or  sepoy  will  compare,  in 
some  particulars,  rather  favourably  with  Tommy  of  the 
Line.  He  is  drawn  from,  speaking  relatively,  a  superior 
class  of  society  ;  he  respects  himself  more,  and  is,  I  think, 
also  held  in  more  respect  by  his  officers.  You  will  not 
often  find  a  subaltern  of  an  English  regiment  eager  to 
assert  that  his  men  are  the  finest  fellows  in  the  world. 
But  I  have  scarcely  met  an  officer  of  the  Indian  Army 
who  does  not  hold  that  opinion ;  nor  does  he  usually 
hesitate  to  give  audible  expression  to  it.  The  ingenuous 
youth,  who  is  responsible  for  a  double  company  of  Gurkhas, 
is  an  enthusiastic  eulogist  of  the  men  of  Nepaul.  The 
squadron-leader,  who  rides  in  front  of  a  hundred  hook- 
nosed Afghans,  assures  you  that  there  are  no  soldiers  like 
his  Pathans.  I  look  back  to  a  delightful  hour  on  a  sunny 
verandah  spent  with  an  officer  of  Madras  Pioneers,  who 
pointed  out,  at  considerable  length,  the  superiority  of  the 
sturdy  cheerful  Tamils,  unduly  depreciated  by  the  military 
autocrats  of  the  North,  over  turbulent  Mussulmans  and 
uncomfortable  high-caste  Hindus. 

The  Indian  officer  has  some  reason  to  be  proud  of  his 
native  comrade  in  arms.  Pir  Bukhsh  or  Ahmed  Khan 
is,  taking  him  all  round,  a  reputable  person  not  without 
honour  in  his  own  country.  He  does  not  come  from  the 
residuum  of  the  towns,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  usually 
sprung  from  a  sturdy  population  of  yeomanry  and  peasants. 
Enlistment  is  for  him  not  a  final  resource  to  avert  starva- 
tion, but  the  entry  to  a  dignified  and  recognised  profession. 
It  elevates  rather  than  debases  him  in  the  social  scale. 
When  he  goes  back  to  his  village  with  a  pension,  after 
carrying  a  lance  or  rifle   for   a  dozen  years,  he  will  be 


158  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

treated  with  a  certain  amount  of  deference  by  his  neigh- 
bours, and  will  feel  himself  entitled  to  walk  with  a  swagger 
for  the  remainder  of  his  days.  In  the  ranks  his  conduct 
is  usually  excellent.  His  discipline  is  good ;  he  revels  in 
his  work,  and  is  proud  of  it ;  he  keeps  his  uniform  and 
accoutrements  spotless,  and  looks  a  soldier  all  over  under 
his  dashing  lung  hi ;  he  is  sober,  temperate,  and  thrifty ; 
he  is  often  a  married  man,  and  when  he  takes  his  leave  he 
spends  it  in  visiting  his  family  and  the  paternal  farm.  If 
he  is  in  the  cavalry,  he  is  commonly  a  sort  of  gentleman, 
belonging  to  the  class  of  small  landed  proprietors,  with  an 
hereditary  predilection  for  the  trade  of  arms. 

Besides  being  one  of  the  best  of  soldiers,  he  is  also  one 
of  the  cheapest.  In  the  infantry,  the  private  receives  nine 
rupees — say,  twelve  shillings — a  month,  and  out  of  that 
sum  he  feeds  and  clothes  himself.  His  rifle  he  receives 
from  the  Government ;  he  is  given  a  sum  of  forty  rupees 
on  joining  to  provide  himself  with  the  rest  of  his  equip- 
ment, and  an  allowance  of  nine  rupees  a  year  to  keep  it  in 
order.  The  sowar  has  thirty-one  rupees  per  mensem,  and 
he  provides  for  his  own  clothing  and  maintenance,  as  well 
as  for  the  keep  of  his  horse,  half  the  wages  of  a  syce 
or  camp-follower,  and  the  food  of  a  mule  or  pony ;  there 
being  one  attendant  and  one  such  animal  for  every  two 
troopers.  When  on  active  service  he  receives  his  rations, 
and  at  other  times  a  small  allowance  to  supplement  the 
cost  of  forage  if  the  price  rises  beyond  a  certain  level. 
Otherwise,  the  Sirkar  gets  this  excellent  trooper,  his  horse, 
his  clothing,  his  food,  his  half -mule,  and  his  half -follower, 
at  an  inclusive  charge  of  less  than  twenty-four  guineas 
per  annum,  which  does  not  seem  excessive. 

The  cavalry  regiments,  except  in  Madras,  are  organised 
on  what  is  called  the  Silladar  system.  Instead  of  bringing 
his  own  horse,  the  sowar  pays  two  hundred  rupees  into  a 
common  regimental  fund.     Out  of  this  fund  the  regiment 


c  c  c  c  c  (      r 

<  ■  «  e  r  c  o  «  c 

c  c  c  c  c 


«••••       «  •  »  c  c- 
c«ctc       tcccc 


c  c   c  c 
c  c  (  c 


SEPOY  AND  SOWAR  159 

buys  the  charger  for  him  and  other  necessary  equip- 
ment, repaying  itself  by  deducting  the  amount  from  his 
monthly  pay.  If  he  loses  his  horse  on  active  service,  the 
Government  supplies  him  with  another;  should  the 
accident  occur  in  peace  time,  an  inquiry  is  held,  and  if  it 
is  proved  to  be  due  to  any  preventable  cause  the  sowar 
obtains  another  animal  from  the  regimental  fund,  but  he 
has  to  pay  for  it  by  monthly  stoppages.  This  naturally 
renders  the  troopers  extremely  careful  of  their  mounts, 
and  better  horse-masters  than  the  men  of  the  Indian 
cavalry  are  not  to  be  found.  They  ride  light  for  their 
height,  with  no  superfluous  baggage,  and  they  never  miss 
a  convenient  opportunity  of  saving  their  horses  by  dis- 
mounting, when  an  English  Hussar  would  be  sitting 
stolidly,  all  the  twelve  stone  of  him,  in  the  saddle. 

The  Silladar  organisation  cares  for  the  interests  of  the 
rank  and  file  in  various  ways.  Some  regiments  keep  their 
own  stud-farms  and  remount  establishments,  under  the 
charge  of  a  non-com.  and  a  few  pensioners  of  the  corps. 
Nearly  all  buy  grain  and  forage  and  clothing  material  in 
large  quantities  and  retail  it  to  the  men  at  a  reasonable 
rate.  The  whole  arrangement  is  under  the  superintend- 
ence of  the  European  officers,  which  is  one  of  the  reasons 
why  the  regiment  works  together  in  a  kind  of  family 
union.  When  the  trooper  takes  his  discharge  from  the 
colours,  his  horse,  or  what  is  left  of  it,  goes  back  to  the 
regiment,  and  he  receives  the  balance  of  his  two  hundred 
rupees  deposit. 

Thus  Pir  Bukhsh  may  return  to  his  village  with  a 
small  capital,  as  well  as  his  pension.  He  often  buys  a 
small  plot  of  land,  if  he  has  not  inherited  one,  and  lives 
in  moderate  prosperity,  provided  he  keeps  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  moneylenders.  He  brings  his  old  cavalry 
sabre  with  him,  and  sometimes  he  takes  it  down  and 
cleans  it  carefully,  regaling  his  sons  with  stories  of  the 


160  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

warlike  exploits  performed  by  him  in  the  regiment  under 
Captain  Eshmitt  or  Captain  Estewart,  and  of  the  singular 
and  special  notice  which  he,  the  said  Pir  Bukhsh,  received 
from  the  Colonel,  and  even  from  the  great  '  Lat  Sahib  ' 
himself,  when  he  was  detailed  to  do  duty  as  orderly  to 
that  commander.  Then  in  the  fulness  of  time,  perhaps, 
young  Smith  or  young  Stewart,  now  leader  of  his  father's 
troop,  despatches  a  native  officer  to  the  village,  with  an 
intimation  that  a  few  recruits  would  be  welcome  ;  and  the 
veteran  sells  a  bullock  or  two,  scrapes  together  the  neces- 
sary entrance-money,  and  sends  off  the  likeliest  of  his 
boys,  with  his  blessing,  to  become  a  soldier  of  the  Em- 
peror, like  himself. 

There  are  rumours  that  it  is  proposed  to  abolish  the 
Silladar  system.  But  it  seems  incredible  that  any  such 
mischievous  project  should  be  seriously  entertained.  Good 
judges  are  convinced  that  it  would  be  the  ruin  of  the 
native  cavalry.  The  soldier  likes  to  think  that  he  is 
serving  the  Sirkar  in  the  old  feudal  fashion,  which  we  did 
not  invent,  but  only  inherited  with  some  modifications 
from  our  predecessors  in  the  government  of  India.  He 
would  deeply  resent  the  idea  of  being  converted,  as  he 
indignantly  puts  it,  into  a  mere  paid  servant  like  any 
coolie  or  table-waiter. 

Promotion  in  the  Indian  Army  is  from  the  ranks. 
The  ambitious  young  native  gentleman  who  aspires  to  a 
military  career  enlists  as  a  private,  perhaps  bringing 
with  him  a  welcome  contribution  of  a  dozen  or  twenty  of 
his  father's  retainers  and  dependants.  He  is  naturally 
marked  out  for  promotion  from  the  beginning ;  and  if  he 
is  intelligent  and  attentive,  and  shows  some  aptitude  for 
command,  he  soon  rises.  Presently  he  becomes  a  naik  or 
duffadar,  and  in  due  course  havildar,  jemadar,  and  subadar, 
or  resaldar-major.  Even  higher  honours  may  await  him. 
Dining   with  a  general  commanding   one   of   the  most 


SEPOY   AND   SOWAR  161 

important  military  districts  in  India,  I  found  his  Moham- 
medan aide-de-camp  at  the  table,  and  treated  by  every- 
body— the  general  himself,  the  ladies  of  his  family,  and 
his  guests — on  precisely  the  same  footing  as  the  English 
members  of  the  staff.  Though  he  was  a  young  Border 
noble,  of  ancient  descent  and  some  fortune,  he  had  gone 
through  the  ranks  and  carried  a  rifle,  like  any  peasant 
recruit  from  the  mountain  hamlets  on  his  estate. 

But  the  Indian  Army  has  been  suffering  of  late 
from  a  recruiting  difficulty  of  its  own.  In  India  we  are 
drawing  our  contingent  from  a  somewhat  constricted 
circle.  We  depend  more  and  more  upon  the  '  fighting 
races,'  and  these  form  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  vast 
population  of  the  Empire.  And  the  proportion  has  been 
steadily  diminishing  of  late  years.  The  Mahrattas,  once 
great  warriors,  now  prefer  intrigue  and  other  civil  pur- 
suits ;  the  Eajputs,  a  fine  people  but  no  longer  quite  what 
they  were,  do  not  now  enter  our  armies  as  freely  as  in 
former  times  ;  the  high-caste  Hindus,  the  Brahman s  and 
*  Pandies,'  who  formed  the  staple  of  the  old  pre-Mutiny 
army,  scarcely  offer  themselves  at  all.  Thus  we  are  rely- 
ing mainly  on  the  two  hill-peoples  beyond  the  frontier, 
the  Pathans  and  the  Gurkhas,  whose  numbers  are  limited, 
and  on  the  Sikhs  and  Punjab  Mohammedans.  The  Sikhs 
are  brave  and  excellent  soldiers  ;  but  they  are  also  keen 
lovers  of  money,  and  they  are  finding  many  profitable 
avenues  open  to  them  as  policemen,  railway  servants,  and 
watchmen. 

There  is  another  difficulty,  of  which  one  hears  a  good 
deal  just  now.  The  pay  of  the  Indian  soldier  has  not 
kept  pace  with  the  times  and  with  the  increased  demands 
made  upon  him.  In  this  respect  he  suffers  in  company 
with  his  own  officers,  and  with  most  other  persons  in 
official  employment.  Living  in  India,  for  native  and 
European  alike,  is  no  longer  so  cheap  as  it  once  was.     The 

M 


162  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

cost  of  everything  has  increased,  including  that  of  food 
and  clothes  and  lodgings.  The  native  soldier  is  not 
now  able  to  buy  grain  and  condiments,  sufficient  to  keep 
him  in  health,  for  twopence  a  day;  he  finds  himself  a 
badly  paid  man  in  comparison  with  a  mill-hand  or  a 
domestic  servant. 

He  has  also  another  special  grievance.  Military 
training,  in  every  modern  army,  is  and  must  be  more 
exacting  than  it  used  to  be.  Under  the  new  regime,  the 
regiments  are  constantly  at  work,  on  parades  and  field 
exercises,  in  practising  night  attacks,  route  marches,  en- 
trenching operations.  This  means  more  destruction  of 
clothing  and  kit,  more  wear  and  tear  of  horses  and  shoe- 
leather,  and  more  food  for  man  and  beast ;  for  the  Indian 
native,  in  his  wisdom,  adjusts  his  consumption  of  food  to 
the  amount  of  muscular  energy  he  requires  to  produce. 
Thus  the  soldier  is  put  to  greater  expense  in  many  ways, 
and  instead  of  saving  a  few  annas  at  the  end  of  the  month, 
he  may  find  himself  with  a  deficit.  I  am  assured  that 
there  is  great  dissatisfaction  throughout  the  Indian  Army 
on  this  account,  and  that  the  shortage  in  recruiting  is 
largely  ascribable  to  the  same  cause.  Happily  the  remedy 
is  easy.  The  Indian  Government  must  contrive  to  add 
another  rupee  or  two  to  the  monthly  wages  of  its  native 
troops.  And  while  it  is  so  engaged,  it  might  usefully 
make  some  improvement  in  the  pay  and  allowances  of  the 
hardworking  corps  of  European  officers,  who  have  made 
its  military  establishment,  with  all  its  defects,  one  of  the 
finest  working  armies  in  the  world. 


163 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  CITIES  OF  THE   MOGHULS 

DELHI,   NEW  AND   OLD 

From  the  wild  Northland,  with  its  whisperings  of  the 
wars  to  come,  the  Prince  of  Wales  passed  down  into  the 
Punjab,  where  almost  every  seamed  and  ravined  plain, 
and  every  devious  spreading  river,  carries  a  memory  of 
triumphs  and  disasters  in  the  past.  The  Indus,  the 
Sutlej,  the  Jhelam,  the  Ravi,  the  Jumna — the  very  names 
speak  of  '  the  drumsj  and  tramplings  of  a  thousand  con- 
quests.' Afghans,  Sikhs,  Tartars,  Rajputs,  Mahrattas,  and 
English,  have  poured  their  blood  into  the  sandy  lagoons 
of  the  great  ^watercourses.  The  Prince  might  have 
mused  (if  the  crowded  days  tof  a  Royal  progress  yield  time 
for  musing)  on  the  strange  fate  which  makes  him  heir  to 
the  thrones  of  Akbar  and  Aurangzeb.  It  is  as  if,  in  some 
distant  century,  a  Mikado  of  Japan  were  to  visit  his 
subjects  among  the  palaces  and  churches  of  Rome,  as 
perhaps  (who  knows  ?)  he  may. 

Rome  herself  has  scarcely  a  stronger  appeal  to  offer  to 
the  imagination  than  some  of  these  storied  cities  of  north- 
ern India.  The  view  over  the  Campagna,  with  its  halting 
legions  of  broken  arches  and  riven  columns,  is  little  more 
impressive  than  that  which  lies  before  the  watcher  from 
the  minarets  of  the  Jamma  Masjid  at  Delhi.  The  history 
of  many  ages  is  in  that  wide  prospect.  Close  below  is 
the  splendid  fort  and  palace,  where  the  latter  Mohammedan 

jc  2 


164  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

Emperors  ruled,  the  noble  halls  of  Shah  Jehan,  first  of 
crowned  builders  and  married  lovers,  and  the  maze  of 
rose-red  courts  above  the  river-bed,  where  the  traditions 
of  the  race  of  Timur  flared  up  again  for  a  brief  revel  of 
murder  and  intrigue  in  the  tragedy  of  1857.  To  the 
south,  amid  the  waste  of  grey  fields,  are  the  ruins  of  the 
older  Delhis,  mile  after  mile  of  remnants  dropped,  as  it 
were,  by  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  kings  in  their  transi- 
tory conquests  of  this  much-conquered  land.  Out  from 
Eome,  along  the  Appian  Way,  you  are  among  the  tombs 
of  men  and  women;  but  here  you  come  upon  a  very 
cemetery  of  cities,  a  graveyard  stocked  with  the  monu- 
ments of  dynasties  and  nations. 

It  is  a  book  of  torn  and  fading  records,  that  sheet  of 
dusty  earth  beyond  the  Delhi  Gate.  Here  and  there  is 
an  entry  that  resists  the  touch  of  time.  Nearly  a  thousand 
years  ago  a  Hindu  king  laid  an  iron  finger  on  the  page, 
when  he  planted  a  famous  pillar  forged  from  a  single  bar 
of  metal,  with  a  vaunting  inscription  in  Sanskrit.  The 
founders  of  the  first  Mohammedan  Delhi,  three  centuries 
later,  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  alter  the  legend  or 
deface  its  setting.  The  little  Iron  Pillar  stands ;  but 
hard  by,  the  Moslem  Kutab  Minar,  the  Tower  of  the 
Faith,  soars  two  hundred  and  forty  feet  aloft,  decked  out 
for  ever  in  a  bannered  pomp  of  red  and  orange  and 
purple  and  creamy  white.  Vend6me  Columns  and  Nelson 
Memorials  and  Teutonic  Victory  Denkmals,  even  St. 
Mark's  Winged  Lion  ramping  on  his  pole,  seem  tame 
beside  this  cry  of  victory  in  coloured  stone.  Slender, 
graceful,  defiant,  the  brilliant  shaft  rears  itself  skyward, 
with  all  the  triumphant  symbolism  of  that  Moslem  art, 
which  had  learnt  to  express  by  line  and  tint  the  passions 
and  emotions  it  was  forbidden  to  illustrate  on  the  human 
face  and  form. 

Between  the  Kutab  Minar  and  the  Delhi  Gate  lies  the 


THE   CITIES  OF  THE  MOGHULS  165 

Tomb  of  Humayun,  the  second  great  Emperor  of  the 
Tartar  line.  Oriental  potentates  are  careful  of  their  last 
abiding-places.  It  is  perhaps  one  phase  of  that  yearning 
for  repose  which  haunts  the  Eastern  temperament,  at 
once  unquiet  and  indolent,  and  makes  it  so  easily  at  home 
with  Death  the  Eeconciler.  '  For  now  should  I  have 
lain  still  and  been  quiet,  I  should  have  slept ;  then  had 
I  been  at  rest  with  kings  and  counsellors  of  the  earth, 
which  built  desolate  places  for  themselves.' 

The  writer  of  the  book  of  Job  had  doubtless  looked 
upon  the  Pyramids.  But  the  tombs  of  the  Moghul  kings 
of  Hindustan,  and  those  of  their  queens  and  ministers 
and  favourites,  are  by  no  means  desolate  places.  On  the 
contrary,  they  are  among  the  most  beautiful  objects  that 
the  hand  of  man  has  created.  The  '  kings  and  coun- 
sellors of  the  earth,'  who  dwelt  while  alive  at  Delhi 
and  Agra  and  Fatehpur  Sikri,  were  epicures  in  graves. 
To  erect  a  splendid  monument  for  themselves  and  their 
wives  was  their  hobby,  their  amusement,  the  occupation  of 
their  leisure.  From  the  battle  and  the  march,  the  angry 
struggle  with  intrigue  and  rival  ambition,  the  fever  of 
sensual  pleasure,  they  turned  to  contemplate  the  long 
silences  to  come.  Life  was  hurried  and  broken,  full  of 
weariness  and  travail,  menaced  by  murderous  enmities. 
For  the  fallen  king  or  the  fallen  favourite  there  was 
nothing  to  hope ;  all  that  he  had,  or  could  leave,  would 
be  at  the  mercy  of  his  supplanter.  But  no  Mohammedan 
would  desecrate  a  tomb.  There,  even  the  dethroned 
monarch,  the  disgraced  and  condemned  minister,  could 
sleep  in  peace.  So  all  the  resources  of  Moghul  power 
and  taste  were  lavished  upon  the  mausoleum.  It  is  the 
crowning  achievement  of  Mohammedanism  in  the  domain 
of  art,  more  beautiful  and  distinctive  even  than  the 
splendid  mosques  and  palaces  with  which  the  Tartar 
kings  enriched  Agra  and  Delhi. 


166  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

Its  site  was  laid  in  some  delicious  plot  of  garden- 
ground,  where  the  dark  spires  of  the  cypress  and  the 
feathers  of  the  neem  tree  are  mirrored  in  the  silvery  gleam 
of  shallow  waters  poured  through  marble  cisterns,  and 
where  beds  of  flowering  shrubs  are  set  amid  turf  kept 
green  even  in  the  tropic  summer.  Kound  it  was  thrown 
a  high  wall,  crenellated  like  that  of  a  fortress,  with  a 
great  red  sandstone  arch,  itself  a  wonder  of  proportion  and 
design,  standing  on  guard  over  the  treasure  within. 

In  the  cool  and  silent  space  of  verdure,  behind  the 
doors  of  ebony  or  bronze,  the  Sultan  built  his  shrine. 
The  cunning  hands  of  Hindu  workmen,  whose  fathers 
had  wrought  in  stone  through  buried  centuries,  were  his 
to  command;  the  old  Indian  patterns  of  deeply  carved 
balcony  and  incised  bracket,  and  chased  and  fretted 
surface-wall,  were  before  him.  To  the  rich  but  sternly 
limited  Brahmanic  schemes  the  Moghuls  added  all  the 
refinements  of  later  Saracenic  art,  in  hovering  domes  and 
sumptuous  cusped  arches  and  nobly  aisled  and  vaulted 
halls  and  delicate  cupolas,  poised  lightly  in  mid-air,  like 
windflowers  trembling  on  their  stems.  Skilful  craftsmen 
were  brought  from  Baghdad  and  Samarkand,  from  Persia 
and  China  and  Arabia,  even  from  Italy  and  France,  to 
perform  miracles  in  inlaying  and  mosaic  and  plaster-work 
and  enamelling  ;  and  Asia  was  ransacked  for  rare  marbles 
and  jade  and  turquoise  and  jasper  and  lapis  lazuli. 

About  the  shrine  itself  was  no  hint  of  funeral  gloom  : 
it  was  a  casket,  shining  in  ivory,  like  the  Taj  Mahal,  or  set 
with  jewellery,  like  the  tomb  of  Itmad-ud-Daulah  at  Agra, 
or  solemnly  rich,  like  that  of  Akbar  at  Sikandra.  While 
he  lived,  the  exquisite  empty  chamber  was  its  owner's 
garden-house  and  place  of  serene  enjoyment ;  when  he 
died,  it  became  a  sanctuary,  where  he  could  lie  quiet 
through  the  ages,  behind  the  verses  of  the  Koran  traced 
in  flawless  blue  down  the  lintels  of  the  doorway. 


THE  CITIES  OF  THE  MOGHULS  167 

But  as  we  gaze  upon  the  distant  dome  of  Humayun's 
tomb,  floating  in  the  luminous  haze  of  morning  or  the 
amber  and  emerald  of  the  sunset  sky,  we  remember  that 
once,  at  least,  the  sanctuary  was  violated.  It  was  from 
these  vaults,  after  Delhi  had  fallen,  in  September  1857, 
that  '  Hodson,  of  Hodson's  Horse,'  that  dashing,  daring, 
reckless  adventurer,  dragged  out  the  last  of  the  Moghuls, 
the  puppet  king  who  had  been  made  the  nominal  head  of 
the  rebellion.  The  coffin  of  his  ancestor  could  not  shield 
the  trembling  old  intriguer  from  the  arm  of  England  and 
an  English  prison.  Nor  could  it  save  his  sons  from  a 
darker  doom.  It  was  at  Humayun's  monument  that  the 
princes  were  in  hiding  when  this  same  Hodson  sought 
them  out  the  following  day.  Tall  and  thin,  with  red  hair, 
and  flaming  blue  eyes  all  alight  with  the  concentrated 
wrath  that  was  burning  in  English  hearts  in  that  grim 
autumn,  a  hundred  of  his  wild  horsemen  at  his  heels,  the 
fierce  guerilla  chief  burst  into  the  crowd  that  beset  the 
mausoleum.  Before  that  Spirit  of  Vengeance  Moslem 
fanaticism  quailed.  With  ten  men  Hodson  disarmed  the 
clamorous  mob  in  the  garden  of  the  tomb,  and  took  a 
thousand  swords  and  firearms  from  them.  Then  he 
brought  the  fugitives  through  the  throng,  and  carried 
them  on  that  famous  and  fatal  drive  to  the  Delhi  Gate, 
where  he  shot  them  with  his  own  hand,  while  a  host  of 
Mohammedans  looked  on,  paralysed  with  fear  and  horror. 
A  bloody  deed  :  but  let  us  remember  that  it  was  the  year 
of  the  Cawnpore  massacres  before  we  pass  hasty  judgment 
upon  it  and  its  author. 

The  mention  of  this  lurid  episode  reminds  us  that  he 
who  watches  from  the  turrets  of  the  great  Delhi  mosque 
is  not  left  alone  with  the  buried  past  and  the  long- 
forgotten  dead.  He  can  turn  from  the  distant  domes  and 
straggling  ruins  to  look  down  into  the  Chandni  Chauk, 
the  main  street  of  the  bazaar,  swarming  with  eager  life. 


168  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

He  can  see  the  laden  bullock-carts,  the  carriages,  and  the 
tongas,  pushing  their  way  through  the  broad  crowded 
street ;  he  can  catch  faintly  the  hum  of  voices  that  issues 
from  the  chattering  multi-coloured  throng.  And  if  he 
casts  his  eyes  northward,  he  is  confronted  with  other 
scenes  which  appeal  to  the  imagination  no  less  forcibly 
than  the  ruined  cities  and  lonely  fanes  of  the  southern 
view,  scenes,  indeed,  on  which  few  Englishmen  can  look 
for  the  first  time  without  some  quickening  of  the  pulses. 

Beyond  the  city  on  that  side  are  leafy  glades  and 
avenues,  with  white  bungalows  and  spreading  suburban 
parks.  Here,  among  these  gardens,  is  the  grave  of  John 
Nicholson;  close  by,  in  the  compound  of  the  building, 
which  is  now  a  club,  is  the  spot  where  the  breaching 
batteries  were  placed  for  the  final  bombardment  of  the 
rebel  town  on  September  11  and  12  in  the  Mutiny  year. 
Two  hundred  yards  away  is  the  old  wall,  still  showing  the 
rents  and  gaps  torn  by  the  English  guns  ;  and  not  far  off 
stands  the  famous  Kashmir  Gate,  all  shattered  as  it  was 
left  on  the  night  when  Lieutenant  Home  and  his  hand- 
ful of  unnoticed  heroes  scrambled  into  the  ditch  with 
their  port-fires  and  fuses.  That  small  building,  again, 
just  inside  the  walls,  near  the  yellow  spire  of  St.  John's 
Church,  is  on  the  site  of  the  Arsenal,  which  Willoughby 
and  a  dozen  other  English  lads  blew  up  over  their  own 
heads  after  holding  it  all  night  against  a  surging  mob  of 
mutineers. 

Somewhat  farther  round  the  wall  used  to  stand  the 
Lahore  Gate  ;  and  there,  if  you  poke  about  a  little  among 
the  dusty  by-streets,  you  will  come  upon  the  narrow  lane, 
high  houses  on  one  side,  the  high  rampart  on  the  other 
(and  marksmen  swarming  upon  both  on  that  14th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1857),  where  Nicholson  met  his  death.  '  Showers 
of  grape  tore  their  ranks  open ;  bullets  flew  down  upon 
them  like  hail  from  above ;  stones  and  round-shot  were 


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THE   CITIES  OF  THE   MOGHULS  169 

pitched  among  them ;  two  officers  fell  mortally  wounded ; 
five  more  were  struck,  and  the  shattered  column,  hurled 
back  in  confusion,  stood  cowering  under  the  storm.  Then 
Nicholson  himself  strode  forward,  and,  raising  his  sword 
above  his  head,  indignantly  appealed  to  them  to  advance. 
In  another  moment  he  had  fallen,  shot  through  the  chest/ 

The  actual  spot  you  cannot  make  out  from  the  minaret 
platform ;  but  the  Flagstaff  Tower  you  can  see,  and  all 
the  length  of  the  Eidge,  where  the  avenging  force  of 
Britain,  a  mere  skeleton  of  an  army,  hungry,  fever- 
stricken,  harassed  by  daily  attacks,  ■  stormed  at  by  shot 
and  shell,'  tormented  by  the  heat,  clung  desperately  all 
through  that  bitter  summer  of  the  Year  Terrible.  They 
were  not  five  thousand,  British  and  native,  at  the 
beginning,  and  never  much  more  than  eight  thousand 
to  the  close,  many  of  them  sick ;  yet  they  pinioned,  and 
finally  they  captured,  a  city  of  two  hundred  thousand 
people,  with  a  garrison  of  at  least  fifty  thousand  angry 
fanatics,  armed  like  our  own  men,  and  drilled  by  our  own 
officers.  A  hopeless  enterprise  it  seemed ;  doomed  to 
failure. 

It  did  not  fail.  The  Eidge  is  green  and  grown  with 
waving  trees  to-day,  and  the  curt  record  on  the  Mutiny 
Memorial  is  idly  read  by  a  generation  which  has  forgotten 
the  very  names  of  the  men  who  brought  England  and 
India  through  the  long  agony  of  1857.  But  their  work 
abides.  Look  from  your  lofty  station,  past  their  famous 
tumulus,  and  you  see  the  high  roofs  of  factories  where  tall 
chimneys  are  spouting  the  smoke  of  lignite  coal  in  a  black 
stream  across  the  sky-line.  It  is  the  ugly  pennant  of  that 
peaceful  industrial  India,  which  toils  and  pushes  under 
the  strong  rule  for  which  the  martyrs  of  '57  died.  So  in 
Agra,  from  the  Jasmine  Tower  of  the  Palace,  itself  a  box 
of  gems,  on  one  side  of  the  river  you  look  down  to  the 
*  white  wonder '  of  the  Taj  ;    and  on  the  other  side  to  a 


170  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

monstrous  railway-bridge,  strident,  naked,  unashamed, 
and  then  again  to  great  chimneys  trailing  their  mephitic 
mist  above  the  lovely  heads  of  minaret  and  mosque. 
Here  in  Delhi  we  have  an  epitome  of  the  three  phases 
of  Indian  development  that  concern  us  most :  the  India 
of  the  older  civilisations,  to  which  it  owes  all  it  has 
inherited  of  grace  and  beauty  and  devotion  ;  the  India 
of  the  long  struggle,  in  which  we  rescued  it  from  a  fast- 
devouring  anarchy  and  gave  it  law  and  peace;  and  the 
India  of  the  New  Age,  which  is  that  of  mechanical 
progress  and  modern  industry.  To  reconcile  the  first 
with  the  last  is  the  problem  before  the  Nicholsons,  the 
Lawrences,  the  Herbert  Edwardeses  of  the  future,  and  it 
is  one  as  hard  as  those  their  fathers  faced  in  the  days  of 
conquest  and  pacification. 

THE   DEAD   CITY   OP   FATEHPUR   SIKRI 

India  has  many  dead  cities  besides  those  which  are 
scattered  upon  the  country  south  from  Delhi.  There  is 
the  noble  old  capital  of  the  Eajputs  at  Chitor,  towering 
over  the  circumjacent  plain  on  its  immense  natural  earth- 
work, and  Amber,  near  Jaipur,  asleep  among  its  green 
deserted  hills,  and  the  huge  fortress  of  Golconda,  and 
Vijayanagar,  the  once  mighty  centre  of  the  Hindu 
kingdom  of  Southern  India,  with  its  forest  of  ruined 
temples,  and  various  others.  But  none  of  these  can  vie 
in  impressiveness  with  Akbar's  capital  of  Fatehpur 
Sikri,  some  twenty  miles  from  Agra.  For  the  other 
places  are  all  more  or  less  ruinous  and  time-worn.  But 
the  palace  of  Fatehpur  Sikri  looks  as  it  must  almost 
have  done  when  it  came  fresh  from  the  builder's  hand 
three  centuries  ago.  There  is  no  mould  of  decay  upon 
its  walls,  no  broken  arches  or  ruined  columns  or  crumbling 
ornaments.     It  lies  too  far  in   the  wilderness  for  van- 


THE  CITIES  OF  THE   MOGHULS  171 

dalisra  or  barbaric  spite  to  have  wrecked  it ;  and  the 
clear  dry  air  has  dealt  so  lightly  with  the  red  sandstone 
of  its  fabrics  that  it  stands  to-day  intact  in  its  desola- 
tion— an  island  fragment  of  the  vanished  Moghul  Em- 
pire. Dead  and  still  it  lies ;  bare  and  cold  its  audience- 
halls,  its  council-chambers,  its  galleries,  its  temples,  its 
baths  and  playing-grounds,  and  the  cages  of  chiselled 
stone  where  Akbar's  women  lived.  It  seems  as  if  the 
Destroying  Angel  had  breathed  upon  it  in  a  night  and 
swept  all  life  out  at  a  blast,  leaving  the  cenotaph  of 
empty  courts  to  stand  in  petrified  perfection  through 
the  ages. 

It  dates  back  to  no  very  remote  antiquity,  and  in  this 
it  resembles  all  that  is  best  in  the  architecture  of 
Northern  India.  What  is  old  is,  as  a  rule,  interesting 
only  to  the  antiquary.  Elizabeth  had  been  Queen  of 
England  six  years  when  Akbar  halted  on  his  march  at 
the  lonely  village  of  Sikri,  where  the  Sheik  Salem 
Chishti,  a  holy  anchorite,  prayed  and  fasted  in  his  cave. 
The  Emperor  had  no  male  heir,  and  he  consulted  the 
saint,  who  advised  him  to  bring  his  Hindu — or  as  some 
say  his  Christian — wife  to  Sikri.  This  was  done,  and  in 
due  course  a  son,  afterwards  the  Emperor  Jehangir,  was 
born  in  the  saint's  cell.  'My  revered  father,'  says 
Jehangir  in  his  Memoirs,  'regarding  the  village  as  for- 
tunate to  himself,  made  it  his  capital,  and  in  the  course 
of  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  the  hills  and  deserts,  which 
abounded  in  beasts  of  prey,  became  converted  into  a 
magnificent  city.'  It  was  called  Fatehpur,  the  Town  of 
Victory,  after  Akbar's  triumphs  in  Guzerat. 

Magnificent  indeed  must  have  been  the  state  which 
the  great  Emperor  maintained.  It  needs  small  exercise 
of  the  imagination  to  conceive  these  halls  and  pavilions 
glowing  with  silken  hangings  and  gorgeous  tapestries, 
and  the  quadrangles  and  cloisters  and  vestibules  glitter- 


172  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

ing  with  resplendent  retainers  and  all  the  clashing  bravery 
of  an  Eastern  Court.  For  Salem  Chishti  himself,  when 
in  due  course  he  passed  into  the  Paradise  of  Moslem 
saints,  a  shrine  was  prepared  behind  an  exquisite  screen  of 
marble  lace-work.  Though  the  glory  of  Fatehpur  has 
long  departed,  the  saint  is  worshipped  there  still.  Bound 
the  outside  of  the  tomb  numberless  small  wisps  of  string 
and  silk  are  twined  into  the  trellis-work  by  childless 
mothers  who  have  prayed  to  the  saint  to  help  them  in 
their  need,  even  as  he  helped  Akbar  the  Emperor.  Not 
all  the  supplicants  are  Mohammedans  and  Hindus.  They 
showed  me  a  knot  of  ribbon,  which  had  been  left  by  an 
English  lady,  perhaps  with  some  faint  half-ironical  hope 
that  the  faith  of  her  Eastern  sisters  in  the  virtues  of  the 
saint  might  not  be  wholly  vain. 

The  white  tomb  of  Salem  Chishti  shines  like  some 
delicate  casket  of  crystal  near  a  corner  of  the  great  quad- 
rangle which  Akbar  drew  round  it.  One  face  of  this 
square  is  formed  by  the  Jamma  Masjid,  the  Cathedral 
Mosque,  dedicated  by  the  Emperor  to  the  saint.  It  is 
one  of  the  noblest  temples  in  the  Moslem  world,  solemn, 
simple,  and  dignified,  with  the  lightly  poised  yet  massive 
domes  of  its  three  chapels  and  the  rich  severity  of  its 
arabesque  internal  aisles  and  colonnades.  But  the 
Mosque  is  almost  dwarfed  by  the  grand  entrance-arch, 
the  Buland  Darwaza,  or  Gate  of  Victory,  which  opens 
on  another  side  of  the  court.  From  within  the  immense 
portal  may  look  too  large  for  its  environment ;  but  seen 
from  outside,  lifting  itself  aloft,  a  superb  mass  of  ensan- 
guined stone  and  marble,  with  the  light  playing  on  its 
galleries  and  arcades,  and  the  shadows  lurking  in  its  deep 
recessed  alcoves,  it  is  overpowering  in  its  magnificence, 
the  finest  by  far  of  the  Moghul  gateways,  perhaps  the 
most  splendid  entrance-tower  of  the  earth.  In  the  effec- 
tiveness of  its  position  no  other  can  surely  compare  with  it. 


THE   CITIES   OF  THE   MOGHULS  173 

The  bare  dusky  plain  stretches  to  the  horizon  in  front  of 
the  mighty  arch,  which  must  be  visible  for  league  upon 
league,  as  it  stands  against  the  sky-line,  heaved  into  mid- 
air by  the  mound  and  broad  flight  of  steps  on  which  it 
is  raised  aloft. 

Through  the  wall  of  the  great  recess  three  doorways 
are  pierced.  Over  one  of  them,  carved  in  Arabic  charac- 
ters, these  words  may  be  read :  '  Said  Jesus,  on  whom  be 
peace !  The  world  is  a  bridge,  pass  over  it,  but  build 
no  house  there.'  The  Emperor  was  not  a  Christian, 
though  he  had  a  Christian  wife ;  but  he  was  an  eclectic 
in  religions,  a  dabbler  in  many  forms  of  faith,  with  a 
turn  for  rationalism,  mysticism,  and  occultism,  and  no 
sympathy  with  the  narrower  forms  of  Mohammedan 
puritanism.  Yet  he  was  devout,  and  a  believer  in  the 
things  of  the  spirit.  On  another  doorway  of  the  Buland 
Darwaza  it  is  written  : 

He  that  standeth  up  in  prayer  and  his  heart  is  not  in 
it,  does  not  draw  nigh  to  God,  but  remaineth  far  from  Him. 
Thy  best  possession  is  what  thou  givest  in  the  name  of 
God ;  thy  best  traffic  is  selling  this  world  for  the  next. 

Strange  to  read  these  words  of  humility  and  devotion,  and 
to  pass  from  the  court  of  the  Jamma  Masjid  into  the 
Palace  and  the  Kesidency  buildings.  They  bring  before 
us,  with  a  weird  emphasis,  the  manner  in  which  the 
Moghul  rulers  lived  in  the  short  summer  of  their  power. 
Here  is  the  Daftar  Khana,  or  Eecord  Office,  where  Akbar 
worked  with  his  secretaries,  and  the  Mahal-i-Khas,  or 
Private  Apartments  of  the  Emperor,  with  his  sleeping 
chamber,  on  the  roof.  We  can  see  the  Diwan-i-Khas, 
or  Hall  of  Private  Audience,  with  a  single  column  and 
colossal  bracket  capital  that  carried  Akbar's  throne ;  from 
it  there  branched  off  stone  gangways  or  bridges  to  the 
corners  of  a  gallery  round  the  room,  where  (so  it  is  said)  the 


174  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

four  chief  ministers  of  the  kingdom  sat.  We  can  look  at 
the  Panch  Mahal,  a  sort  of  grand-stand  in  stone,  in  which 
five  storeys  are  raised  one  above  another,  on  columns 
each  carved  to  its  own  distinct  elaborate  design.  From 
these  stages  the  ladies  of  the  zenana  would  taste  the 
freshness  of  the  evening  air,  and  gaze  down  at  the  cere- 
monies and  revels  in  the  courts  below,  and  at  the  great 
pachisi  or  chess-board  marked  out  on  the  pavements, 
where  the  game  was  played  with  slave-girls  as  the  living 
pawns  and  pieces.  One  can  walk  down  to  the  Elephant 
Gate,  with  its  tower,  bristling  with  stone  teeth  and  tusks, 
from  which  the  Emperor  used  to  shoot  antelopes  and 
deer,  driven  up  to  him  from  the  margin  of  the  great 
artificial  lake. 

There  are  many  smaller  separate  dwellings  scattered 
about  the  enclosures :  the  Palace  of  the  Hindu  Minister  ; 
1  Miriam's  House,'  where  perhaps  the  Christian  wife  lived, 
with  paintings  on  the  walls  supposed  to  be  of  Biblical 
subjects;  and  the  so-called  'Turkish  Sultana's  House,' 
with  a  covered  passage  to  the  royal  private  apartments,  a 
choxming  petite  maison  ornamented  to  the  last  square  inch. 
We  ponder  over  the  skilful  labour  that  all  this  work  must 
have  been  for  a  multitude  of  diligent  hands,  and  consider 
what  it  meant  to  transform  this  desert  rock  into  a  palace 
of  art  and  a  pleasure-house  ;  and  with  a  shock  we  realise 
that  all  this  was  only  to  satisfy  the  caprice  of  an  hour. 
Scarcely  was  the  costly  toy  made  than  it  was  thrown 
aside,  to  lie  abandoned  on  its  dust-heap  ever  since. 

Akbar  held  his  court  at  Fatehpur  Sikri  for  no  more  than 
seventeen  years,  when  he  removed  it  to  Agra.  Some 
accounts  aver  that  the  transfer  was  prompted  by  considera- 
tion for  the  feelings  of  Saint  Salem  Chishti.  The  holy 
man  complained  that  the  concourse  of  human  beings  in 
the  city  and  palaces  disturbed  his  devotions,  and  that 
either  he   or  the  Emperor  must  go  elsewhere,     *  Then, 


cccce 
c  c  c  •  « 


THE  CITIES  OF  THE   MOGHULS  175 

said  Akbar,  'let  it  be  your  servant,  I  pray.'  Eecent 
inquirers  have  suggested1  that  the  City  of  Victory  was 
more  probably  deserted  because  the  water-supply  was  in- 
adequate. Whatever  the  cause,  there  it  stands,  the  most 
splendid  and  striking  testimony  to  that  capricious  and 
irresponsible  Eastern  despotism,  which  could  use  the  lives, 
the  labour,  the  destinies  of  men  for  its  own  purposes,  and 
could  at  its  will  call  rich  and  populous  towns  into  being 
in  the  wilderness  and  drop  them  back  again  into  solitude 
and  silence.  Nowhere  does  that  come  quite  so  clearly 
before  us  as  in  the  beautiful  dead  city  which  Akbar  built 
and  left. 

AGEA   AND    THE    TAJ 

But  of  the  later  Moslem  art  the  crown  and  flower  is 
the  Taj  Mahal  at  Agra ;  and  of  the  Taj  what  is  one  to 
say  ?  It  is  a  thing  whereof  it  is  hard  to  write ;  for  no 
writing  can  convey  its  peculiar  and  unique  appeal  to  the 
emotions.  There  was  an  instructive  anecdote  related  to 
me  when  I  was  at  Agra.  It  was  of  a  middle-class,  middle- 
aged  American,  probably  from  Chicago,  and  quite  possibly, 
when  at  home,  in  Pork.  He  was  doing  India  rapidly,  in 
a  shiny  black  coat,  and  with  no  outward  traces  of  senti- 
ment. To  all  appearance  the  price  of  commodities  in- 
terested him  more  than  the  customs  of  the  East,  and  as 
a  subject  of  conversation  at  the  club  he  preferred  the 
tariff  to  Indian  art.  No  man  could  have  been  less  readily 
suspected  of  yielding  to  the  emotions.  Yet  when  they 
took  him  to  the  Taj  for  the  first  time,  on  a  night  of  moon 
and  stars,  he  gazed  in  blank  silence  for  a  space  as  he 
came  through  the  entrance  portal.  Then  he  lifted  up 
his  voice  and  wept,  disturbing  the  solemn  stillness  with 

1  See  Mr.  E.  B.  Havell'g  excellent  Handbook  to  Agra  and  the  Neighbour- 
hood, whieh  contains  an  admirable  and  very  well-written  description  of 
Fatehpur  Sikri. 


176  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

audible  sobs  and  ejaculations.  So  at  least  the  story  was 
given  to  me  by  a  respectable  resident  in  Agra,  who  was 
himself  present  and  witnessed  the  phenomenon.  I  had 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  imagined  this  remarkable 
incident,  and,  for  my  own  part,  I  believed  his  tale.  It  is 
not  so  difficult  to  credit  when  you  have  yourself  seen  the 
Taj  Mahal  by  moonlight. 

There  are  some  few  things  of  this  earth  which  cannot 
be  vulgarised,  and  chief  among  these  is  the  Taj.  Fami- 
liarity does  not  touch  the  edge  of  its  charm,  or  sully  its 
virginal  freshness.  One  has  seen  it  travestied  a  thousand 
times,  in  feeble  photograph,  and  libellous  post-card,  and 
clumsy  'process'  print,  and  utterly  inadequate  water- 
colour  or  oils.  They  cut  it  out  of  cardboard,  or  make  a 
miserable  forlorn  toy  of  it,  in  imitation  marble,  under 
a  deplorable  glass  shade,  so  that  it  seems  fit  only  for  the 
lodging-house  mantelpiece.  It  has  been  described  to  death, 
and  the  late  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  assailed  it  with  blank  verse. 
Tourists  travel  half  round  the  globe  to  look  at  it  and  go 
home  to  gush.  If  any  object  could  awaken  disillusion  and 
resentment  by  being  known  too  well,  that  object  should 
be  the  Agra  shrine.  But  it  comes  victoriously  through 
all.  There  is  no  spoiling  it,  any  more  than  by  the  same 
familiarity  it  is  possible  to  spo/il  the  Moonlight  Sonata,  or 
Borneo  and  Juliet  or  the  Sistine  Madonna. 

A  healthy  critical  intellect,  when  all  men  combine  to 
praise,  is  inclined  to  question.  Some  people  fortify  them- 
selves for  a  visit  to  the  Taj  by  suspecting  that  much  of 
the  admiration  lavished  on  it  is  mere  conventional 
exaggeration,  based  on  no  definite  conviction,  and  there  is 
a  moment  when  the  rationalist  may  think  he  did  well  to 
be  sceptical.  The  first  view  of  the  Taj,  it  is  commonly 
said,  is  '  disappointing.'  That  is  because  of  the  conditions 
under  which  it  is  so  often  taken.  The  alert  visitor,  anxious 
to  lose  no  time,  makes  for  the  tomb  as  soon  as  possible 


THE   CITIES   OF  THE   MOGHULS  177 

after  his  arrival  in  Agra.  In  the  morning  or  early  after- 
noon he  drives  out  from  his  hotel  in  a  hired  carriage, 
which  sets  him  down  inside  the  outer  courtyard  by  the 
steps  of  the  great  entrance  door.  He  has  not  noticed  the 
beauty  of  the  approaches,  nor  can  he  spare  an  eye  for 
the  quiet  precincts,  or  the  stone  bells  on  their  delicate 
stalks  at  the  corners  of  the  garden  wall,  or  the  mosques 
and  chatris  grouped  about  the  central  chapel ;  scarcely 
does  he  observe  the  noble  gateway  as  he  passes  through 
it  with  a  hasty  unilluminative  glance. 

Then  he  stops,  with  probably  a  gasp  of  amazement. 
Is  this  the  Wonder  of  the  World,  this  smallish  square 
building,  with  its  four  dumpy  cupolas  huddling  under  the 
dome,  and  its  four  cylindrical  lighthouse  towers,  looking, 
in  the  remorseless  clearness  of  the  atmosphere,  dispro- 
portionately distant  from  each  other  and  the  main  edifice  ? 
The  spectator,  educated  on  soaring  Gothic  spires  and 
massive  towers,  on  huge  walls,  opulent  with  flying  but- 
tress and  springing  arch  and  intricate  ornamentation,  is 
apt  to  be  taken  aback  by  the  restrained  simplicity  of  the 
white  fabric  that  perches  on  its  platform  in  front  of  him. 
He  is  visited  by  the  blasphemous  thought  that  it  is  some- 
what petty,  that  it  is  even  (Heaven  forgive  him !)  a 
little  hard  and  cold.  The  flaring  sunlight  is  flung  full 
upon  its  gleaming  surface,  so  that  the  shadows  vanish,  and 
the  recesses  are  flattened,  and  the  angles  come  out  with 
unfaltering  crudity.  If  he  were  to  see  it  but  once,  and 
see  it  like  that,  he  would  go  away  vexed  with  the  Taj 
Mahal,  and  smile  derisively  for  ever  after  when  he  heard 
its  praises  sung. 

Kepentance  comes  speedily  after  that  first  full-faced 
unsatisfying  glance.  It  is  born  when  you  have  crossed 
the  terrace,  and  passed  out  of  the  noonday  glare  into  the 
silent  richness  and  sweet  subdued  glow  of  the  interior. 
Here  the   golden   sunlight   strays  wandering  in,  filtered 

N 


178  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

through  thread-like  trellises  of  marble,  till  the  whole 
chamber  is  full  of  a  soft  and  luminous  aether,  free  alike 
from  the  levity  of  day  and  the  gloom  of  night.  In  this 
clear  twilight  dusk,  all  the  lovely  details  of  the  decoration 
are  '  more  expressed  than  hid,'  and  it  needs  no  peering 
into  dark  corners  to  reveal  the  flowers  that  grow  in  low 
relief  on  the  mural  tablets  of  the  ante-chapels,  and  those 
that  blossom  in  inlay  of  poppy  red  and  turquoise  blue  and 
emerald  green  on  the  walls  of  the  octagon  shrine  itself. 
Under  the  vault  of  the  great  dome  (you  see  how  large  it 
is  as  you  look  upwards  into  its  billowing  depths)  lies  the 
tomb  of  Mumtaz  Mahal,  the  fair  and  gentle  lady  for 
whom  Shah  Jehan,  the  Emperor,  created  this  peerless 
monument,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  power  and  passion. 
When  he  died,  old  and  broken,  and  a  dethroned  prisoner, 
they  laid  him  beside  her,  with  the  same  screen  of  laced 
and  embroidered  stone  thrown  round  both  to  shelter  their 
slumbers,  and  the  same  unfading  flowers  blooming  by 
their  graves. 

But,  beautiful  as  is  the  interior  of  the  Taj,  its  fullest 
charm  is  caught  from  the  outside.  You  realise  this  when 
you  abandon  the  front  view,  and  wander  about  the 
gardens,  finding  exquisite  glimpses  of  snowy  structures, 
so  light  and  graceful  that  they  seem  to  rest  on  air,  of 
buoyant  cupola  and  climbing  campanile.  The  Taj  owes 
much  to  its  surroundings.  Perhaps  it  would  lose 
its  effect  in  the  Waterloo  Bridge  Boad,  or  even  in  the 
Champs-Elysees.  But  where  it  stands,  amidst  its  trees 
and  flower-beds  and  waters,  rising  serene  from  among  the 
lesser  tombs  and  temples  clustering  at  its  knees,  you 
cannot  wish  it  otherwise.  Go  a  little  distance  away,  and 
you  wonder  that  you  ever  deemed  it  trivial.  You  see 
that  it  is,  in  fact,  spacious  and  lofty  (the  dome  rises 
higher  than  the  spire  of  many  cathedrals),  and  that  it  has 
grandeur  as  well  as  beauty. 


THE  CITIES  OF  THE   MOGHULS  179 

Fortunately  you  can  now  get  sight  of  the  masterpiece 
without  approaching  too  near.  The  gardens  have  been 
restored  to  something  more  nearly  resembling  their  ori- 
ginal condition,  and  the  results  of  many  decades  of  neglect 
and  carelessness  have  been  cleared  from  the  precincts. 
It  is  one  item  in  that  work  of  renewal  and  conservation, 
which  India  owes  to  some  of  its  recent  administrators, 
and  more  particularly  to  the  late  Viceroy.  It  is  not  the 
least  of  Lord  Curzon's  achievements  that  he  caused  the 
finest  examples  of  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  architecture 
to  be  treated  with  reverent  and  judicious  attention.  He 
has  induced  the  masters  of  India  to  respect  the  artistic 
heritage  which  has  descended  to  them  from  the  rulers 
they  supplanted.  If  we  cannot  reproduce,  we  may  at 
least  preserve,  the  splendid  works  of  the  older  conquerors, 
long  regarded  with  barbarian  indifference.  It  was  a  pre- 
decessor of  Lord  Curzon's  on  the  viceregal  throne  who 
began  to  sell  the  materials  of  the  palaces  at  Agra,  and 
would  have  sold  the  Taj  itself  if  he  could  have  got  a  good 
price  for  the  marble.  And  even  so  late  as  thirty  years 
ago,  when  King  Edward  visited  India,  they  could  find 
nothing  better  to  do  with  the  Taj  than  to  illuminate  its 
dome  with  limelight.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  they  fore- 
bore  to  embellish  it  with  advertising  placards. 

In  these  days  of  slightly  better  perception,  the  Prince 
and  Princess  of  Wales  were  spared  the  illuminations. 
They  went  to  view  the  Taj  by  moonlight,  which  every- 
body should  do  who  finds  that  the  daytime  aspect  still 
leaves  him  with  lingering  doubts.  For  at  night  its 
seduction  is  irresistible.  Criticism  is  mute,  as  you  sit  on 
the  steps  by  the  entrance  gate,  while  the  moon  drifts 
above  the  trees,  and  the  ring  of  silver  light  is  stealing 
round  the  base  of  the  dome  and  creeping  gently  upwards 
to  the  pinnacle.  Here  are  none  of  the  harsh  contrasts 
familiar  in  such  circumstances  elsewhere.     To  talk  of 

n2 


180  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

ebony  and  alabaster  is  to  evoke  ideas  too  rough  for  this 
intimate  revelation  of  beauties  withheld  from  the  in- 
discreet and  prying  day.  The  shadows  on  the  Taj  are 
not  black,  but  something  between  umber  and  violet ;  and 
the  marble  itself,  glimmering  under  the  dusky  velvet  of 
the  sky,  has  lost  its  frozen  pallor  and  hints  at  the  warmth 
and  soft  texture  of  life.  You  note  the  tender  half-tones 
growing  upon  the  smooth  and  rounded  surfaces,  as  a 
young  lover,  sitting  with  his  mistress  by  a  moonlit 
window,  might  watch  the  faint  shadows  hovering  over 
the  warm  whiteness  of  satin  throat  and  ivory  shoulder. 

It  is  this  sensuous  suggestiveness  of  the  Taj  which 
some  critics  disparage.  They  say  it  is  feminine,  it  lacks 
strength  and  stern  dignity.  But  of  course  it  is  feminine. 
One  might  as  well  make  that  a  reproach  against  the  Venus 
of  the  Capitol  and  the  Virgins  of  Murillo.  If  Shah  Jehan 
had  been  a  Greek  or  an  Italian,  the  Lady  of  the  Tomb 
would  have  stood  in  changeless  marble  or  smiled  from 
breathing  canvas.  But  Moslem  art  was  forbidden  to 
imitate  the  human  figure.  It  could  only  symbolise ;  and 
the  Taj  is  a  symbol,  like  all  the  finest  creations  of  the 
later  Mohammedan  architecture.  The  Kutab  Minar  sym- 
bolises warlike  energy  and  passion ;  the  Tomb  of  Akbar 
majesty  and  varied  wisdom;  the  Hall  of  Audience  at 
Delhi,  the  Diwan-i-Khas,  with  its  famous  inscription, 

If  the  earth  holds  a  heaven  of  bliss, 
It  is  this,  it  is  this,  it  is  this ; 

symbolises  the  sumptuousness  of  ease  and  wealth  and 
arbitrary  power. 

Yet  the  Taj  Mahal  is  not  merely  a  monument  and 
a  symbol,  but  also  to  some  extent  a  representation. 
The  meaning  which  its  subtle  and  allusive  art  conveys  is 
significantly  revealed  when  you  see  it  neither  in  full  day 
nor  by  night,  but  at  the  moment  after  sunset,  when  most 


THE   CITIES   OF  THE   MOGHULS  181 

of  the  light  has  faded  from  the  sky,  and  only  a  few  flying 
streamers  of  rose  and  opal  are  left  under  a  canopy  of 
azure,  paling  swiftly  into  greyness.  The  dim  shape,  with 
its  flowing  curves  all  shrouded  in  white,  might  be  the 
figure  of  some  veiled  Eastern  princess,  walking  with 
bowed  head  and  rhythmical  footstep  in  her  gardens  by 
the  shining  river.  And  the  four  watching  minarets  are 
the  grave  and  kindly  sentinels,  keeping  guard  over  the 
beauty  and  tenderness,  the  modesty  and  shrinking  charm, 
which  so  often  find  shelter  behind  the  purdah  screen 
of  Indian  womanhood. 

When  you  have  time  to  spare  from  the  Taj,  you  go  to 
see  the  other  Moghul  monuments  of  Agra.  The  best  of 
them  were  built  by  Shah  Jehan,  in  whose  time  the  archi- 
tecture and  decorative  art  of  the  Indian  Mohammedans 
flowered  into  their  fullest  splendour,  before  they  ran  to  seed 
in  the  tawdry  extravagance  of  the  palaces  and  monuments 
at  Lucknow.  Shah  Jehan's  days  were  chequered.  He 
rebelled  against  his  father  Jehangir,  and  when  he  came 
to  the  throne  he  disposed  of  all  disputes  about  the  succes- 
sion by  murdering  his  brothers.  He  was  self-indulgent 
and  tyrannical,  and  in  the  end  his  son  Aurangzeb  headed 
a  conspiracy  against  him  and  deprived  him  of  his  crown. 

He  married  Mumtaz  Mahal  when  he  was  twenty-one 
and  she  was  nineteen.  He  had  one  wife  already ;  but  his 
second  marriage  was  a  true  love-match,  and  Mumtaz 
Mahal — which,  being  interpreted,  means  ■  The  Crown  of 
the  Palace' — was  famous  for  charity  and  mercifulness, 
as  well  as  for  beauty  and  wit.  Eighteen  years  after  the 
marriage  she  died,  having  borne  her  husband  no  fewer 
than  fourteen  children.  The  Emperor  was  inconsolable, 
or,  rather,  he  consoled  himself  by  sending  for  the  most 
skilful  architects  and  craftsmen  he  could  find,  and  with 
their  help  and  a  lavish  outpouring  of  treasure  he  built  the 
tomb  by  the  Jumna. 


182  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

A  great  artist  was  Shah  Jehan  as  well  as  a  great  lover. 
The  Palace  Fort  at  Agra  is  full  of  gorgeous  buildings,  and 
the  finest  are  those  which  owe  their  origin  to  him.  He 
built  the  Pearl  Mosque,  a  dream  of  delicacy  and  grace, 
by  some  thought  lovelier  than  the  Taj  itself,  and  the 
Khas  Mahal  and  Diwan-i-Khas  at  Agra,  besides  that  Hall 
of  Audience  at  Delhi,  all  of  which  are  miracles  of  pro- 
portion and  design  and  ornamentation.  When  Aurangzeb 
had  driven  him  from  his  throne,  and  taken  his  kingdom 
from  him,  Shah  Jehan  was  kept  in  confinement  in  the 
exquisite  pavilion  called  the  Jasmine  Tower,  which  stands 
in  the  Fort  at  Agra,  hard  by  some  of  his  own  masterpieces, 
and  in  full  view  of  the  Taj.  Seven  years  he  lived  there, 
the  old  broken  king,  faithfully  attended  by  his  good  and 
gentle  daughter  Jehanara,  who  voluntarily  shared  his 
captivity.  He  was  seventy-five  when  the  end  came,  and 
his  last  day  he  spent  in  gazing  down  the  river  to  the 
tomb  where  Mumtaz  Mahal  lay.  When  sunset  fell  and 
darkness  hid  the  domes  and  turrets  from  his  sight,  he 
died,  bidding  Jehanara  be  of  good  cheer,  and  calling  on 
the  name  of  Allah  the  Merciful.  His  sins  be  forgiven 
him.  He  shed  blood  and  he  broke  troth.  But  he  made 
the  world  more  beautiful,  and  he  loved  much. 


THE    TAJ    MAHAL    FROM    THE    GARDENS. 


<  «      •    •  I 


183 


CHAPTEE  XIII 
THE   BLOSSOMING  OF  THE   WILDEENESS 

It  might  almost  have  been  the  terrace  of  an  English 
country  house,  as  we  stood  there  on  the  verandah  that 
pleasant  Sunday  morning.  In  front  of  the  stone  steps  was 
a  gravelled  sweep  of  carriage-drive,  bordered  by  a  bed  of 
standard  roses  and  pink  and  yellow  chrysanthemums.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  low  hedge  was  a  smooth  rectangle 
of  turfed  lawn-tennis  ground,  with  the  court  marked  out 
and  the  nets  standing.  The  eye  ranged  down  an  avenue 
of  young  tamarind-trees  to  the  swinging  gate  of  the  com- 
pound, and  beyond  that  to  a  broad  high  road.  Not  far 
away  one  saw  the  red  walls  of  other  bungalows,  and  in 
the  distance  the  clustering  roofs  of  a  town,  the  sheds  and 
signal-posts  of  a  railway-station,  and  a  tall  warehouse- 
chimney.  Eound  us  the  flat  country  lay  green  with 
fodder  and  the  ripening  winter  crops ;  and  at  intervals 
small  brown  hamlets  spotted  the  plain,  which  stretched 
away  in  an  unbroken  level  to  the  foot  of  a  purple  line  of 
saw-backed  hills.  Cattle  grazed  in  the  meadows,  husband- 
men were  at  work  among  the  fields  and  trickling  water- 
courses, laden  carts  moved  slowly  along  the  roads.  It 
seemed  a  picture  of  ordered  and  tranquil  prosperity. 

But  you  are  admonished  to  glance  at  a  large  patch  of 
tawny  yellow  in  the  midst  of  the  greenery  not  far  away. 
You  see  that  this  inset  is  bare  and  lifeless  sand,  with 
nothing  growing  upon  it  but  a  few  stunted  bushes.  And 
you  have  to  learn  that  as  this  space  now  is,  so,  some  five 


184  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

years  ago,  was  the  whole  wide  champaign  before  you.  It 
was  all  arid  waste,  without  grass  or  trees  or  cultivation. 
There  was  no  town,  no  road,  no  railway-station,  no  agri- 
culture. There  were  no  cattle  but  the  small  and  half- 
starved  beasts  belonging  to  the  scattered  nomads  who 
roamed  over  the  desert  track.  Now  the  same  area  yields 
food  for  nearly  a  million  people,  and  sends  its  surplus 
coastwards  to  load  the  corn-ships  which  help  to  give 
Londoners  their  daily  bread. 

The  miracle  has  been  wrought  by  water — water  and 
brains,  and  well-directed  energy  to  apply  both.  Four- 
fifths  of  the  inhabitants  of  India  cultivate  the  soil ;  but 
they  serve  a  hard  and  fitful  taskmistress.  Under  that 
burning  sun,  which  crumbles  dry  earth  to  a  powder  or 
bakes  it  into  fissured  blocks,  there  can  be  no  culture  with- 
out abundant  moisture.  To  the  Indian  peasant,  the  rain- 
fall which  comes,  or  should  come,  towards  the  close  of  the 
south-west  monsoon  or  in  the  early  spring,  is  all  in  all. 
If  it  is  plentiful  he  may  have  a  good  crop  and  a  prosperous 
year ;  if  it  drops  below  the  average,  he  will  be  hardly 
pressed ;  if  it  fails  altogether,  his  cattle  will  probably  die, 
his  home  will  be  broken  up,  his  wife  and  children  and 
himself  may  become  outcasts,  and  the  whole  family  may 
perish  miserably,  unless  there  happens  to  be  a  Belief 
Camp  accessible.  No  wonder  the  ryot,  as  he  sits  under  a 
tree  in  the  heat  of  a  summer  afternoon,  watches  the  hard 
dome  of  polished  azure  above  him  with  ravenous  eye.  To 
the  farmer  in  another  country  a  bad  season  brings  trouble 
and  loss  ;  here  it  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death  for  millions. 

And,  unhappily,  the  rains  cannot  be  depended  upon. 
Seas  of  water  pour  upon  India  from  the  clouds,  or  roll 
down  into  its  plains  from  the  melting  snows  of  the 
Himalayas ;  but  the  flood  is  badly  distributed  and  capri- 
cious. Over  large  tracts  the  normal  rainfall  is  only  just 
sufficient  to  feed  the  crops  and  grass-lands ;  if  there  is  a 


THE  BLOSSOMING  OF  THE  WILDERNESS        185 

surplus  one  year,  there  may  be  drought  the  next.  There 
is  an  area  of  a  million  square  miles — say  twenty  times  the 
size  of  England — *  of  which,'  says  an  official  document, 
'  in  the  absence  of  irrigation,  no  portion  can  be  deemed 
absolutely  secure  against  the  uncertainties  of  the  seasons 
and  the  scourge  of  famine.'  Other  extensive  districts 
there  are  in  which  the  annual  rainfall  is  so  scanty  that 
sufficient  harvests  cannot  be  gathered  in  without  artificial 
irrigation. 

The  greatest  and  most  permanent  of  all  the  benefits 
which  British  rule  has  conferred  upon  India  is  that  of 
regulating,  improving,  and  equalising  the  supply  of  water 
for  agricultural  purposes.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  if  we 
were  to  quit  the  Peninsula  to-morrow  we  should  leave 
behind  us  nothing  worthy  to  endure :  only  iron  bridges, 
mostly  hideous,  and  a  few  tasteless  churches,  museums, 
and  town  halls — no  noble  monuments  such  as  those  of 
some  of  the  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  kings.  But  our 
canals  we  should  leave ;  and  unless  our  successors  were 
sheer  barbarians  they  could  not  allow  these  splendid 
public  works  to  decay,  or  permit  the  provinces  we  have 
made  habitable  by  them  to  go  back  to  desert  again. 

India,  for  many  centuries,  has  been  supplementing  the 
atmospheric  water-supply  in  its  own  primitive  fashion. 
The  rain-water  was  stored  in  tanks,  or  it  was  tracked  to 
its  subterranean  reservoirs  and  drawn  up  to  the  surface. 
The  ancient  rulers  of  the  land  were  great  diggers  of  wells 
and  builders  of  cisterns ;  in  the  South  especially  their 
handiwork  is  seen  in  many  thousands  of  ponds  and 
artificial  lakes,  large  and  small,  which  are  used  to  this 
day.  Canal-making  came  much  later.  It  was  not  till 
the  Moghul  sovereigns  had  given  a  large  part  of  northern 
India  a  stable  and  settled  government  that  they  turned 
their  attention  to  this  subject.  But  most  of  their  schemes 
were  abandoned  or  remained  in  abeyance  during  the  dis- 


186  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

orders  which  overtook  their  empire  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  was  left  for  the  English  to  amplify  and 
develop  the  enterprise.  For  the  last  fifty  years  the 
engineers  of  the  Indian  Government  and  the  Public 
Works  Department  have  been  busily  engaged  upon  it. 
The  result  is  a  system  of  irrigation,  which  though  still 
uncompleted  is  unquestionably  the  most  magnificent 
created  by  human  effort  in  any  modern  country.  The 
great  rivers  have  been  tapped  in  their  upper  ranges,  and 
the  surplus  water  that  comes  down  in  the  rainy  weather 
is  drawn  off  into  main  feeder  canals,  which  deliver  their 
contents  into  branch  canals ;  and  these  again  fill  a  network 
of  minor  runlets,  and  finally  discharge  their  fertilising 
streams  into  the  conduits  and  ditches  by  which  the  farmers 
keep  their  crops  green. 

The  canals  are  officially  classed  under  two  heads: 
they  are  regarded  either  as  Protective  or  Productive.  The 
former  are  supposed  to  supplement  the  water-supply  of 
districts  which  in  years  of  normal  rainfall  can  be  culti- 
vated successfully.  Thus  they  furnish  a  defence  against 
famine  and  all  the  loss  and  misery  that  evil  word 
suggests.  The  Protective  canals  are  not  kept  up  mainly 
for  profit,  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  mostly  yield  a 
very  fair  return  on  the  capital  expended.  The  Productive 
works  are,  however,  intended  to  increase  the  yield  of  the 
soil,  and  in  some  cases  to  render  cultivation  practicable 
where  otherwise  it  could  not  be  attempted,  owing  to  the 
scantiness  of  the  rainfall. 

Millions  of  acres  of  good  but  drought-stricken  land 
have  been  turned  into  arable  and  pasture  by  this  means. 
The  earth  is  willing  enough  to  yield  up  its  abundance ; 
but  the  heavens  deny  the  water  of  life,  and  it  has  had  to 
be  brought  in  by  the  hand  of  man.  The  Productive  works 
pay  very  well.  In  the  Punjab  they  yield  10£  per  cent, 
interest  on  the  capital  outlay,  and  for  the  whole  of  India 


THE  BLOSSOMING  OF  THE   WILDERNESS        187 

the  net  revenue  is  over  7  per  cent.  The  Government  of 
India,  after  paying  4  per  cent,  interest  on  the  capital  cost, 
is  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  million  in  pocket  by  its  canals 
at  the  end  of  every  year,  besides  having  saved  its  subjects 
incalculable  damage  and  suffering. 

So  satisfactory  a  result  abundantly  justifies  the  con- 
templation of  a  further  expenditure  on  canal  construction 
amounting  to  several  million  pounds  during  the  next  few 
years.  Some  of  the  projects  are  daring  even  for  the 
new  school  of  engineers,  who  fear  nothing.  There  is  talk 
of  banking  the  snows  of  the  Himalayas  in  a  stupendous 
artificial  lake  in  Kashmir,  and  spreading  them  by  pipes 
and  aqueducts  half  over  Northern  Hindustan.  This  may 
be  visionary ;  but  another  proposal,  almost  equally  striking, 
is  considered  quite  feasible,  and  will  probably  be  carried 
out.  The  Jhelam,  one  of  the  Punjab  rivers,  has  rather 
more  water  than  is  needed,  and  the  Chenab  rather 
less ;  so  the  engineers  are  calmly  devising  a  new  con- 
duit, by  which  they  can  connect  the  two  watercourses, 
and  regulate  the  flow  of  both  by  turning  on  a  tap. 
Nature  is  rough  and  unruly  and  frequently  terrible 
in  Southern  Asia;  but  she  is  being  slowly  got  into 
harness. 

The  most  audaciously  conceived  and  brilliantly  suc- 
cessful of  all  the  schemes  are  those  monuments  of 
engineering  enterprise  and  administrative  capacity,  the 
'Canal  Colonies,'  as  they  are  called,  of  these  same  Chenab 
and  Jhelam  river-basins.  The  colonies  are  vast  tracts  of 
land,  which,  owing  to  the  want  of  water,  were  almost 
uninhabited,  except  by  a  few  nomads  and  semi-civilised 
squatters  and  cattle-thieves.  The  engineers  constructed 
the  artificial  watercourses  that  rendered  it  possible  to 
bring  the  soil  under  cultivation.  Then  the  Government 
constituted  each  district  an  administrative  unit,  and  placed 
it  under  the  charge  of  a  Deputy  Commissioner,  who  was 


188  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

also  appointed  'Colonisation  Officer,'  with  special  in- 
structions to  carry  out  a  definite  and  systematic  scheme 
of  settlement. 

The  Sirkar  had  the  wisdom  or  good  fortune  to  secure 
the  services  of  officials  of  quite  exceptional  capacity  for 
this  important  task.  The  Chenab  Colony,  which  is  the 
older  and  the  larger,  has  been  for  five  years  past  under 
the  firm  and  successful  rule  of  Mr.  Leslie  Jones,  who 
has  done  great  things  with  it.  The  district  which  he 
controls  is  nearly  equal  in  extent  to  Kent,  Surrey,  and 
Sussex  taken  together,  and  the  population  is  now  well 
over  a  million.  It  has  two  hundred  miles  of  railway, 
admirable  roads,  several  prosperous  little  towns,  and  one 
larger  place,  Lyallpur,  which  is  rapidly  growing  to  quite 
respectable  proportions ;  and  it  yields  a  net  revenue  of 
more  than  21  per  cent,  on  its  capital  cost. 

But  I  preferred  to  visit  the  Jhelam  Colony,  which, 
though  slightly  smaller,  is  newer,  for  its  canal  was  only 
opened  in  the  autumn  of  1901 ;  and  it  was  here  that  I 
spent  some  singularly  agreeable  and  instructive  days. 
The  Jhelam  Colony  has  been  watched  over  from  its  birth 
by  Mr.  W.  M.  Hailey,  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  younger 
officials  in  the  Civil  Service  of  the  Punjab — a  man  with 
just  that  force  of  character,  clearness  of  insight,  relentless 
industry,  and  restrained  enthusiasm,  which  are  required 
for  such  work  as  this.  Little  more  than  four  years  before 
my  visit  the  colony  was  lifeless  scrub  and  empty  desert. 
To-day,  like  its  neighbour  on  the  Chenab,  it  is  covered  with 
fields  of  grain,  with  orchards,  gardens,  grazing-meadows, 
breeding-farms,  and  cattle-runs.  It  is  studded  with  pro- 
sperous villages,  and  it  includes  a  population  of  probably 
three-quarters  of  a  million,  of  whom  several  thousands 
live  in  Mr.  Hailey's  rising  capital  of  Sargodha,  a  model 
little  town,  with  well-planned  straight  streets,  a  granary, 
a  municipal  market,    a  busy  bazaar,  a  cotton-store,  a 


THE  BLOSSOMING  OF  THE  WILDERNESS        189 

factory,  and  an  active  group  of  traders  and  merchants 
who  are  on  the  high  road  to  wealth. 

These  colonies  are  '  plantations  '  in  the  old  sense  of 
the  term.  They  have  to  be  sown  not  only  with  trees,  but 
with  men.  The  Colonisation  Officer,  as  he  settles  down 
in  his  first  camp  or  his  newly  built  bungalow,  in  the 
centre  of  what  is  afterwards  to  be  the  civil  station  of  the 
cantonment,  has  a  blank  sheet  before  him :  a  million  acres 
of  bare  waste,  to  be  converted  into  townships,  farms,  and 
villages.  To  a  large  extent  he  has  a  free  hand  ;  he  is  the 
mandatory  of  a  despotic  Government,  intended  to  act  the 
part  of  a  beneficent  autocrat  himself.  There  are  not  many 
vested  rights  to  be  considered  in  this  wilderness,  and  few 
troubles  about  ancient  titles  or  prescriptive  boundaries. 
The  Commissioner  can  divide  out  his  domain  accurately 
into  square  plots,  so  many  for  each  farm  and  each  hamlet ; 
he  can  trace  his  highways  and  local  roads  on  the  most 
suitable  lines  with  regard  to  topography  and  water-supply ; 
he  can  lay  out  his  town  with  broad  avenues  and  inter- 
secting cross-streets,  and  secluded  but  airy  courts,  accord- 
ing to  the  latest  municipal  ideas  adapted  to  Oriental 
customs ;  he  can  put  his  finger  on  the  map  and  decree,  in 
consultation  with  the  engineers,  where  men  and  women 
are  to  live,  and  under  what  conditions. 

The  settlers  come  to  the  places  allotted  to  them,  with 
their  wives  and  children,  their  buffaloes  and  cows,  their 
brass  pots  and  simple  tools,  and  presently,  on  the  pre- 
scribed site,  there  arises  a  brown  village  which  is  the 
counterpart,  with  certain  sanitary  improvements,  of  that 
which  they  have  left  behind — a  village  with  its  pond 
and  well  and  mud-walled  byres  and  farmsteads,  its  tiny 
mosque  or  temple.  The  Mohammedans  are  in  one  village, 
the  Hindus  in  another,  the  Sikhs  congregate  in  a  third. 

And,  besides  the  cultivators,  people  of  other  classes  have 
to  be  encouraged  or  attracted  :  policemen,  postmen,  and 


190  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

Government  messengers,  traders,  and  baniyas  to  supply  the 
markets  and  fill  the  bazaars,  dealers  to  buy  and  sell  the 
grain  and  cotton  from  the  farms,  artisans  and  labourers. 
It  is  not  a  backwoods  colony  of  isolated  pioneers, 
slowly  working  towards  cohesion,  but  an  organised  com- 
munity, with  its  complex  social  gradations  properly  ad- 
justed. And  here  the  structure  stands  to-day,  in  its 
outlines  and  relative  proportions,  pretty  much  as  it  may 
be  found  a  century  or  two  hence,  save  for  some  cataclysm 
of  Nature  or  politics  :  a  complete  little  province,  a  minia- 
ture state,  busy,  thriving,  and  self-sustaining,  and  pro- 
ducing such  a  superfluity  of  food  that  it  is  helping  to 
convert  Karachi  into  a  formidable  rival  to  Bombay  and 
changing  the  balance  on  the  corn-markets  of  the  world. 

A  wonderful  work,  truly,  to  have  been  done  in  a  few 
brief  years  sliced  out  of  a  young  man's  lifetime,  a  work 
assuredly  not  accomplished  without  heavy  sacrifices  and 
an  invincible  endurance  and  determination.  Before  the 
Jhelam  Colony  had  been  many  months  in  being,  the 
plague  broke  out  and  the  people  began  to  flee  from  their 
houses  in  panic.  Mr.  Hailey's  chief  native  subordinate 
(he  had  no  European  assistant)  fell  ill  and  died ;  he  him- 
self, going  in  and  out  of  the  plague-stricken  dwellings  to 
superintend  disinfecting  operations,  caught  the  epidemic 
and  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life. 

The  men  at  the  head  of  these  irrigation  colonies  must 
know  the  natives  thoroughly,  and  they  should  love  them 
— wisely,  but  perhaps  not  too  well.  They  must  have 
that  combination  of  deep  sympathy  and  equable  justice 
wherein  lay  the  strength  of  the  great  Anglo-Indian  admi- 
nistrators in  the  past.  If  you  ride  with  a  Colonisation 
Officer  on  his  daily  rounds,  you  begin  to  understand 
something  of  the  meaning  of  paternal  government.  He 
is  judge,  governor,  supreme  adviser,  tax-collector,  chief 
magistrate,  agricultural  expert,  and  general  admonisher,  of 


THE  BLOSSOMING  OF  THE   WILDERNESS        191 

his  subjects.  When  he  enters  the  village,  he  has  an  eye 
for  everything.  Why  is  that  heap  of  refuse  allowed  to 
encumber  the  road  outside  Abdul  Kerim's  enclosure,  con- 
trary to  regulations?  Let  it  be  cleared  away.  The 
offender  objects  to  the  suggestion,  and  makes  no  sign  of 
compliance.  ■  Hookum  hai — it  is  an  order,'  says  a  voice, 
which  is  quite  low  and  level ;  but  Abdul  knows  the  tone, 
and,  with  a  sigh  of  resignation,  he  begins  to  remove  the 
obstruction. 

The  head-man  comes  out  with  the  village  elders. 
They  salaam  before  the  Head  of  the  District,  but  they 
have  a  grievance.  They  collect  round  his  horse,  and  pour 
out  a  billowy  torrent  of  excited  speech,  in  which  you 
distinguish  the  word  *  Pani'  (water),  reiterated  with 
sobbing  passion.  They  are  complaining  that  the  engi- 
neers of  the  Public  Works  Department  are  stinting  them 
of  their  lawful  allowance  of  the  fluid,  or  charging  them 
unduly  for  that  which  they  do  receive.  As  the  Colon- 
isation Officer  moves  slowly  along,  they  follow  him  ;  the 
head-man,  with  agitated  staff  sawing  the  air,  keeps  by 
his  off  stirrup-leather;  a  tall,  black-bearded,  sunburnt 
peasant,  with  his  red  mantle  thrown  round  his  right 
shoulder,  raises  an  antistrophe  from  the  other  side ;  com- 
panions behind  and  in  front  act  as  a  voluble  chorus  ; 
the  village  children,  grinning  all  over  their  brown  faces, 
toddle  gleefully  in  the  wake  of  the  procession. 

The  pale-faced,  square- shouldered  gentleman,  sitting 
erect  in  his  saddle,  listens,  asks  a  question  now  and 
again,  does  not  say  much.  He  lets  them  chatter :  it  may 
be  that  their  complaint  is  legitimate  and  must  be  looked 
into ;  in  any  case  he  knows  that  half  their  sense  of  injury 
will  disappear  if  they  are  allowed  to  talk  their  fill  upon 
it.  And  so  on  to  another  village  and  another,  and  then 
back  to  camp  or  bungalow,  to  make  notes  of  what  has 
been  heard  and  seen,  to  discuss  it  with  the  water  officials, 


192  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

perhaps  to  begin  a  wearisome  correspondence  over  it 
with  the  Public  Works  Department  or  the  Provincial 
Government. 

But  years  hence  these  orators  of  the  hamlet  will 
recollect  their  speeches  and  repeat  them,  and  explain  how 
they  stood  up  before  the  Huzur  and  patriotically  spoke 
for  the  common  weal ;  and  sadly  they  will  compare  the 
Burra  Sahib,  the  Protector  of  the  Poor,  who  brought 
them  to  this  good  land,  with  the  much  inferior  sahibs 
known  to  the  younger  generation.  They  will  not  have 
forgotten  him,  even  after  he  has  long  left  India  and  gone 
home  for  good,  when  such  a  scene  as  this  will  be  no  more 
than  a  dim  memory,  that  may  perchance  steal  faintly 
back  to  his  brain,  as  he  turns  over  the  evening  papers  in 
the  smoking-room  on  some  sunny  afternoon.  At  the 
club  they  may  have  only  a  vague  remembrance  that 
So-and-So  was  once  *  something  in  India.'  Therein 
they  are,  indeed,  not  wrong.  A  man  of  this  stamp  is 
unquestionably  Something  in  India. 


193 


CHAPTEK  XIV 
THE    PILGRIM    FAIR 

What  is  the  most  wonderful  sight  in  India — the 
strangest  thing  to  be  seen  in  all  this  land,  where  so  much 
is  strange?  For  my  part,  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  whether 
anything  can  be  witnessed  more  impressive  and  picturesque, 
more  pregnant,  too,  with  meaning  and  significance,  than 
the  Kumbh  Mela,  or  great  Pilgrim  Fair,  which  is  held, 
once  in  every  twelve  years,  where  the  waters  of  the 
Ganges  and  the  Jumna  meet,  below  the  walls  of  Alla- 
habad. Until  you  have  looked  upon  one  of  these  tre- 
mendous gatherings  of  humanity  many  aspects  of  Indian 
life  and  character  must  be  hidden  from  you. 

At  the  Kumbh  Mela,  which  occurs  only  at  Allahabad 
and  Hardwar,  and  in  a  minor  form  at  two  other  places, 
you  see  Hinduism  at  its  best  and  its  worst ;  you  begin  to 
realise  faintly  the  hold  that  this  jumble  of  devotion, 
metaphysics,  and  rank  idolatry  has  upon  the  masses  of 
the  people;  you  observe  Brahmanism  working  hand  in 
hand  with  a  crude  and  savage  fetish-worship ;  you  have 
before  you  such  multitudes  of  men  and  women  as  you 
may  not  meet  twice  in  a  lifetime;  and  you  know  that 
this  gigantic  assemblage,  built  up  on  a  framework  of  pro- 
fessional fanaticism,  is  kept  in  absolute  control  and  perfect 
order  by  a  handful  of  Europeans,  which  is,  perhaps,  the 
greatest  miracle  of  all.  How  we  govern  the  peoples  of 
India,  and  how  it  is  that  we  can  govern  them — that,  too, 
you  understand  better  if  you  are  so  fortunate  as  to  get  to 

o 


194  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

the  duodecennial  Festival  at  the  meeting  of  the  Sacred 
Rivers. 

India  is  a  land  of  pilgrimages  and  pilgrim  fairs.  All 
over  the  country  there  are  spots  where  some  one  of  the 
vagrant  gods  of  the  populous  Hindu  Pantheon  has 
sojourned  on  earth  for  a  space  and  left  behind  an  odour 
of  special  and  undying  sanctity.  To  these  holy  shrines 
the  worshippers  resort  as  eagerly  as  they  did  in  that 
Merrie  England  of  Chaucer's  time,  when  men  wandered 
forth  *  feme  halwes  for  to  seeke,'  and  they  do  it  with  the 
same  mixture  of  devotional  zeal  and  pleasurable  zest. 

For  the  pious  Hindu  the  pilgrimage  is  a  church  festival 
and  a  bank  holiday  in  attractive  combination.  To  wash 
in  the  sacred  Ganges,  to  sacrifice  a  kid  on  the  blood- 
stained shambles  of  Kali's  temple,  to  bathe  in  the  beating 
surf  before  the  Jagannath  altars  at  Puri,  will  bring 
redemption  of  sin  and  a  few  aeons  of  salvation.  It  will 
also  provide  an  extremely  agreeable  outing.  There  is  the 
great  world  to  be  seen,  perhaps  an  unknown  big  city  to 
be  visited,  temples,  holy  tombs,  healing  tanks,  not  to 
mention  the  marvels  of  the  bazaar  and  the  European 
shops,  to  be  inspected,  and  many  *  side-shows '  and 
amusements  to  be  tasted  in  the  enlivening  company  of 
a  vast  miscellaneous  concourse. 

For  the  Indian  peasant  and  craftsman,  and  more  par- 
ticularly for  their  womankind,  life  is  hard  and  monotonous. 
The  pilgrimage  is  the  treat  of  the  year,  perhaps  of  many 
years.  In  the  old  times  the  journey  was  made  on  foot,  or 
in  crazy  native  vehicles  of  one  kind  or  another.  In  these 
days  a  large  proportion  of  the  pilgrims  travel  by  railway, 
and  opulent  is  the  harvest  that  is  reaped  from  them. 
Eight-and-twenty  third-class  trains,  packed  as  one  would 
imagine  no  cattle-trucks  or  sheep-pens  could  be  packed, 
will  be  run  into  one  of  the  great  pilgrim  centres  in  a  single 
day.     The  platforms  are  jammed  with  squealing  voyagers, 


THE  PILGRIM  FAIR  195 

the  waiting  enclosures  swelter  and  flutter  like  chicken- 
crates. 

The  travellers  are  not  all  of  this  kind.  Now  and  then 
even  a  ruling  prince  with  his  horde  of  followers  will  set  up 
an  encampment  on  the  ground,  though  this  happens 
seldom  in  these  days,  for  religious  zeal  is  not  fashionable 
with  the  modern  generation  of  rajas.  But  many  well- 
to-do  traders  and  baniyas  come,  and  some  bring  their 
families  with  them.  The  fair  is  the  Hindu  woman's  holi- 
day, even  more  than  the  men's  — the  one  brilliant  fortnight 
in  years  of  drudgery  and  seclusion.  At  these  festivals  you 
see  more  women  of  a  grade  above  that  of  the  coolies  and 
the  sweepers  in  a  few  hours  than  in  many  weeks  among 
the  great  cities  ;  and  your  estimate  of  Hindu  feminine 
beauty  rises  by  leaps  and  bounds. 

A  woman,  in  most  countries,  looks  her  best  when  she 
has  got  her  nicest  '  things '  on ;  and  at  the  fair  bright  new 
robes  and  a  lavish  display  of  ornaments,  bangles,  anklets, 
nose-rings,  and  earrings,  are  the  mode.  Moreover,  the 
women  here,  unlike  most  of  those  visible  to  the  European 
connoisseur  elsewhere,  are  not  all  darkened  by  exposure 
and  stunted  by  toil  and  hard  living.  Pretty  soft  oval 
faces,  bright  eyes,  teeth  unreddened  by  betel-nut,  and 
complexions  of  almost  European  fairness,  are  not  un- 
common. And  the  ladies  are  all  smiling  and  cheerful, 
and  are  treated  with  comparative  politeness,  even  by  their 
own  husbands,  on  these  exceptional  occasions. 

Of  all  the  festivals,  those  connected  with  bathing  in 
the  sacred  rivers  are  the  most  popular,  and  of  these  rivers 
the  Ganges  is  the  holiest.  That  is  why  Allahabad,  which 
in  the  Hindi  language  is  called  Prayag,  the  Place  of 
Sacrifice,  has  been  a  goal  of  pilgrimage  for  many  centuries. 
The  celebration  is  older  than  Mohammedanism,  older  than 
Christianity,  perhaps  older  than  Brahmanism  itself.  Just 
below  the  Fort  there  is  a  triangular  spit  of  sand,  at  the 

o  2 


196  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

point  of  which  the  Jumna  rolls  into  the  Ganges ;  and, 
according  to  popular  belief,  a  line  of  ripples  marks  the 
junction  of  a  third  river,  which  bubbles  up  from  under  the 
ground,  and  is  visible  to  the  eyes  of  the  Enlightened, 
though  not  to  those  of  the  ordinary  sin-laden  spectator. 

This  triangle,  the  Sangam,  or  meeting-place,  is  among 
the  most  exalted  bathing-sites  in  all  India,  and  great  is  the 
merit  acquired  by  dipping  in  the  waters  at  its  apex.  Con- 
sequently there  is  a  much  frequented  Mela  at  Allahabad 
every  winter.  But  when  the  planet  Jupiter  enters  the 
sign  of  the  Kumbha,  which  is  Aquarius  the  water-carrier, 
then  the  sanctity  of  the  place  is  increased  tenfold,  and 
more  than  tenfold  are  the  numbers  of  the  pilgrims,  so  that 
they  are  only  exceeded  by  the  tale  of  those  who  flock  to 
Benares  during  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun.  There  were 
said  to  be  two  millions  at  the  Mela  during  one  of  the 
great  processional  days  on  which  I  visited  it ;  and  to  the 
casual  spectator,  surveying  the  immense  encampment  and 
the  moving  crowds,  the  estimate  did  not  seem  exaggerated. 
The  camp,  indeed,  should  not  be  called  by  that  name.  It 
is  a  town — a  temporary  town,  it  is  true  ;  but  while  it  lasts 
one  of  the  great  cities  of  the  world,  more  populous  than 
Peking  or  Vienna,  with  as  many  inhabitants  as  Liverpool 
Manchester  and  Glasgow  rolled  into  one. 

The  Fair  is  largely  a  money-making  concern.  It  is  run 
by  associations  of  ascetics,  who  have  their  headquarters  in 
Allahabad  and  in  some  cases  their  branches  all  over  India. 
They  assume  the  fakir  dress,  or  want  of  dress,  and  go 
about  publicly  in  rags,  with  matted  hair,  their  faces  and 
bodies  daubed  with  the  river  clay.  Some  of  them  wear 
no  clothes  at  all,  and  are  regarded  on  this  account  with 
peculiar  reverence.  But  these  akharas,  or  religious 
societies,  are  not  too  much  absorbed  in  the  things  of  the 
spirit  to  neglect  earthly  details.  They  own  a  good  deal  of 
property,  and  some  of  them  are  bankers  and  landholders, 


THE  PILGRIM  FAIR  .       197 

as  well  as  mendicant  friars ;  they  are  legally  enrolled  as 
corporations,  and  can  sue  and  be  sued ;  and  they  have 
their  own  superiors,  or  mahants,  who  manage  their 
common  affairs,  and  are  treated  with  considerable  respect 
by  the  British  authorities,  for  they  are  important  persons, 
able  to  give  a  good  deal  of  help  or  to  cause  much  trouble 
during  the  processional  periods. 

The  various  sects  and  akharas  are  active  rivals,  and 
some  care  has  to  be  taken  that  they  do  not  come  into 
collision  during  the  Allahabad  Mela.  The  most  turbulent 
are  the  Bairagis,  a  large  association  worshipping  Rama 
and  Krishna,  which  has  its  adherents  all  over  Northern 
India.  The  Bairagis  are  always  a  source  of  anxiety  to 
the  police  officials  during  the  Fair ;  for  they  are  noisy  and 
aggressive,  and,  unlike  the  other  bodies,  they  are  not 
under  the  regular  control  of  their  mahants.  All  the 
akharas  are  encamped  upon  the  left  bank  of  the  Ganges, 
with  the  Bairagis  separated  by  a  broad  road  and  a  fence 
from  the  others. 

From  bank  to  bank  two  temporary  bridges  of  boats  are 
laid  during  the  Mela.  On  the  Allahabad  side  is  the  camp  of 
the  pilgrims.  It  is  a  town  of  many  streets.  The  avenues 
and  cross-roads  are  laid  out  by  the  Government,  which 
also  builds  huts  of  plaited  straw,  and  allows  them  to  be 
occupied  at  a  very  low  rent  by  the  visitors.  A  few 
hundred  thousand  are  lodged  in  this  way.  Others  make 
tiny  sheds  for  themselves  of  logs  and  brushwood,  or  put 
up  little  shelters  of  canvas,  or  are  content  with  the  bare 
ground,  and  it  may  be  an  umbrella. 

They  can  please  themselves  as  to  this  ;  but  certain 
limited  sanitary  rules  are  laid  down  and  strictly  en- 
forced. The  Kumbh  Mela  is  an  affair  of  the  priests  and 
the  fakirs.  They  keep  it  going  mainly  for  their  own 
benefit ;  and  in  essentials  it  probably  does  not  differ 
greatly  from  what  it  was  three  centuries  or  ten  centuries 


198  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

ago.  The  Government  does  not  interfere  with  the  re- 
ligious ceremonies.  Hinduism,  even  in  its  ridiculous  and 
offensive  manifestations,  is  given  a  free  hand.  But  we  do 
for  its  votaries  what  they  would  never  do  for  themselves : 
we  watch  over  their  health,  we  keep  the  peace  among 
them,  we  humbly  go  about  to  see  that  they  are  properly 
policed  and  scavenged  and  disinfected.  We  make  the 
place  about  as  safe  as  Piccadilly,  and  nearly  as  healthy. 

A  little  cholera  there  will  always  be  in  this  immense 
concourse  of  folks  from  the  four  corners  of  India,  of  whom 
many  will  bathe  in  the  cold  waters  of  the  river  in  the 
morning,  eat  unwholesome  food,  lie  in  the  sun  all  day, 
and  expose  themselves  with  no  sufficient  covering  to  the 
chills  of  night.  There  was  a  case  or  two  during  my 
visit,  and  I  saw  one  brown  figure  with  knees  drawn  up, 
eyes  closed,  and  rigid  jaw,  lying  in  a  state  of  collapse 
outside  his  shanty.  But  he  was  not  jolted  down  to  the 
river  to  die,  as  he  would  have  been  before  we  took  the 
Fair  in  hand.  There  are  proper  segregation  huts,  with 
native  doctors  and  attendants,  and  a  body  of  trained  in- 
spectors to  see  that  the  cholera  patients  are  promptly 
dealt  with,  and  the  sanitary  regulations  carried  out. 

To  go  his  rounds  with  a  police  officer  at  the  Fair,  on 
the  afternoon  before  one  of  the  days  fixed  for  the  great 
processions  of  the  akharas,  is  an  interesting  experience. 
Strange  scenes  and  figures  are  met  at  every  turn.  There 
is  a  separate  enclosure  for  the  barbers,  a  whole  village  of 
them,  for  no  less  than  2,800  of  these  useful  persons  are 
needed  to  perform  the  offices  of  the  toilet  for  the  pilgrims. 
The  main  street  of  the  camp  is  a  seething  bazaar,  where 
traders  and  merchants  of  all  kinds  have  set  up  shops. 
Brass  pots  and  pans,  clothing,  provisions,  toys,  jewellery, 
native  shoes  and  Austrian  kid  boots,  books,  perfumes, 
cheap  haberdashery,  sewing-machines,  and  numberless 
other  things,  are  on  sale.     The  booths  of  the  sweetmeat- 


THE  PILGRIM  FAIR  199 

sellers  are  surrounded  by  struggling  crowds  from  morning 
to  night ;  for  every  Hindu  eats  sweetstuff.  There  are 
numerous  shows  and  performances.  A  native,  supposed  to 
be  got  up  as  an  European,  with  a  false  moustache,  a  straw 
hat,  and  check  trousers,  is  beating  a  drum  at  the  entrance 
of  a  tent  where  a  vernacular  adaptation  of  Faust  is  to  be 
given.  Next  to  him  is  a  mart  for  the  sale  of  devotional 
literature.  The  customers  can  buy  religious  tracts,  or  if 
they  prefer  them,  ancient  chromos  of  King  Edward  VII. 
as  Prince  of  Wales  in  the  costume  of  the  'seventies — a 
remnant,  perhaps,  of  the  previous  Koyal  tour. 

Eeligion,  trade,  and  amusement  go  hand  in  hand 
everywhere.  The  ground  is  dotted  with  tiny  shrines  and 
makeshift  temples,  which  are  an  excuse  for  the  faithful  to 
make  an  offering.  Dust-strewn  fakirs  sit  under  big  um- 
brellas, wrapped  in  meditation,  but  with  an  ear  for  the 
clinking  of  coppers  in  the  begging-bowl  beside  them. 
Some  of  them  rest  immovable,  hour  after  hour,  on  wooden 
bedsteads  studded  with  iron  nails,  the  points  upwards. 
Others  exhibit  hideous  deformities  :  a  leper,  with  both  legs 
swollen  into  horrible  grey  trunks ;  a  man  with  one  arm 
withered  to  a  loose  tendril,  which  he  wags  endearingly  at 
the  passers-by.  In  an  open  vault,  at  the  bottom  of  a 
flight  of  steps,  is  a  huge  recumbent  figure  of  Hanuman, 
the  monkey-god.  The  idol  is  smeared  all  over  with  red 
paint,  and  in  the  dim  light  one  can  see  the  priest  picking 
from  its  monstrous  limbs  the  rupees  and  annas  thrown 
upon  them  by  the  worshippers,  who  stand  upon  the  steps 
with  bowed  heads  and  supplicating  palms. 

The  Sikhs  are  much  in  evidence  at  the  Fair.  We  go 
into  one  of  their  large  open  pavilions,  where  a  sort  of 
prayer-meeting  is  being  held.  An  altar  is  placed  at  one 
end  of  the  tent,  and  before  it  black-bearded  men  sit 
solemnly  in  rows,  while  a  reader  recites  passages  from  the 
Granth,  the  sacred  volume  of  the  Khalsa,  in  a  monotonous 


200  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

sing-song.  There  is  an  instrumental  accompaniment : 
one  man  beats  a  small  tom-tom,  another  performs  on  a 
kind  of  concertina,  and  the  brass  bell-mouth  of  a  gramo- 
phone yawns  beside  him. 

The  mahant,  a  splendid  old  Sikh,  six  feet  two  at  least, 
with  a  chest  like  that  of  a  bull  elephant,  courteously  in- 
vites us  to  a  place  where  we  can  have  a  good  view  of  the 
proceedings.  He  thinks  we  might  like  to  hear  the 
gramophone.  So  the  reader  stops  his  chant,  and  the 
machine,  a  very  bad  one,  grinds  out  what  I  presently  dis- 
cover to  be  an  English  lyric,  painfully  familiar.  ■  Wow'n't 
you  come  home,  Bill  Bailey  ? '  asks  the  wheezy  gramo- 
phone in  a  Cockney  accent,  while  the  old  mahant  leans 
on  his  stick  and  beams  with  pride,  and  the  black-bearded 
worshippers  look  on  with  unrelaxed  features.  Perhaps 
they  thought  they  were  listening  to  a  devotional  melody. 

My  companion  has  various  calls  to  make.  One  of 
them  is  upon  the  mahant  of  a  group  which  on  these 
occasions  dispenses  with  clothes.  With  him  he  has  to 
discuss  some  details  of  the  morrow's  procession ;  for  these 
men,  as  I  have  said,  are  influential  and  can  keep  things 
in  order.  They  made  an  unusual  pair — the  tall  young 
Englishman,  in  his  neat  khaki  uniform,  with  belt  and 
shoulder-straps,  and  the  little  drab  fakir,  without  a  rag 
or  stitch  upon  him.  But  the  mahant  was  an  intelligent 
man,  with  a  shrewd  eye  and  a  courteous  manner,  and 
the  interview  went  smoothly. 

There  were  many  other  duties  to  fill  the  police  officer's 
well-spent  day — precautions  to  be  enforced  against  fire, 
the  order  of  the  great  processions  to  be  arranged,  the  out- 
lying police-posts  to  be  visited,  the  daily  charge-sheet  to 
be  examined.  In  one  respect,  his  task  is  made  easier  than 
it  could  be  in  some  other  countries.  Sectarian  rivalries 
may  give  trouble,  but  there  is  scarcely  any  ordinary 
crime. 


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THE  PILGEIM   FAIR  201 

As  we  went  back  to  the  police  headquarters,  a  con- 
stable was  holding  by  a  cord  a  miserable  outcast  lad,  who 
had  been  caught  pilfering  small  coins ;  but  the  charge- 
sheet  was  almost  blank,  and  the  wooden  cages,  intended 
as  a  lock-up  for  prisoners,  were  empty.  In  this  vast 
assemblage,  swept  up  from  a  continent,  there  was  a  com- 
plete absence  of  violence,  of  drunkenness,  of  disorder. 
Noise  there  was,  indeed,  in  deafening  quantity,  for  the 
people,  as  they  passed  through  the  lines  of  tents  and 
swarmed  about  the  shops  and  shows,  were  all  chattering 
furiously,  screaming,  calling  to  one  another,  talking  at 
the  full  stretch  of  the  high-pitched  strident  native  voice; 
but  there  was  no  rowdiness,  no  rough  horseplay,  no  offen- 
sive revelry,  no  indecent  larking.  Women  and  young  girls 
were  there  by  the  hundred  thousand.  I  was  told  that 
amid  the  throng  of  the  camp  bazaar,  and  among  the 
rows  of  dimly-lighted  shanties,  they  were  as  secure  from 
molestation  or  annoyance  as  they  could  have  been  in  their 
own  homes.  Some  comparisons,  not  wholly  welcome, 
leaped  unbidden  to  the  mind. 

The  Allahabad  Kumbh  Mela  is  kept  up  for  some 
weeks  in  January  and  February.  To  see  it  at  its  weirdest, 
it  should  be  visited  on  one  of  the  three  great  days  when 
the  associations  of  sadhus  and  swamis  and  other  holy 
men  go  in  procession  to  bathe  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Sacred  Eivers.  Ascetics  as  these  persons  are  by  profes- 
sion, contemptuous  of  the  elementary  comforts  of  life  and 
even  its  conventional  decencies,  they  understand  the  im- 
portance of  spectacular  display  in  impressing  the  multi- 
tude. Elephants,  with  gilded  howdahs  and  rich  housings, 
resplendent  palanquins,  and  broad  banners  of  silk  and 
gold  waving  over  long  columns  of  marching  worshippers, 
make  these  processions  very  showy  affairs,  so  that  they 
will  quite  bear  comparison  with  some  of  the  interesting 


202  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

medleys  of  childishness  and  splendour  which  certain  of 
the  feudatory  princes  array  on  occasions  of  festivity  or 
state.  The  martial  pomp  of  gleaming  weapons  and 
prancing  chargers  is  wanting  ;  but  its  absence  is  not  felt. 
Without  it  there  is  enough  of  varied  colour  and  vibrating 
life;  and  there  are  some  singular,  and  even  startling, 
features  which  give  the  parade  a  character  most  distinc- 
tively its  own. 

The  Fort  of  Allahabad,  capacious  as  most  of  those 
built  by  the  Moghul  kings,  a  stronghold  and  a  town  in 
itself,  stands  high  on  its  bluff  of  land  above  the  sandy 
bank  and  spreading  channel  of  the  Ganges.  There  was  a 
Sabbath  hush  about  its  vacant  courts  as  we  drove  through 
them  in  the  early  morning  of  that  Sunday,  which  was  the 
Sankrant,  the  first  of  the  three  chief  processional  days  of 
the  festival.  European  society  was  still  mostly  in  bed, 
and  the  soldiers,  except  the  few  on  duty,  were  in  their 
barrack-rooms. 

We  made  for  an  angle  of  the  ramparts  which  over- 
looks the  sacred  spit  of  sand  wedged  between  the  com- 
mingling rivers.  A  little  clump  of  grey  and  a  fleck  of 
scarlet  guided  us  to  the  place ;  for  there  was  a  knot  of 
official  spectators  here,  together  with  a  sergeant  and  a 
couple  of  privates  of  a  British  battalion,  languidly  busy 
with  the  cartridge-slide  of  a  Maxim  gun.  There  were 
some  two  millions  of  people  from  all  over  India  close 
at  hand,  of  whom  thousands  were  professional  fanatics  ; 
so  that  a  reserve  of  coercive  machinery  was  no  doubt 
necessary.  But  of  visible  military  preparation  one  saw 
nothing  beyond  this  Maxim  and  another  small  field-piece 
trained  upon  the  inclined  way  leading  up  to  the  main 
approach  to  the  Fort  from  the  water-side.  There  had  been 
an  idea  of  ordering  a  native  regiment  into  camp,  some- 
where near  the  Mela  site ;  but  there  came  a  scare  of 
cholera,  and  it  was  decided  not  to  expose  our  turbaned 


THE  PILGRIM  FAIR  203 

warriors  to  the  risk  of  infection.     The  civilians  and  the 
police  were  left  to  manage  the  crowd,  and  well  they  did  it. 

I  went  up  to  the  parapet,  and  from  the  grey  stillness 
behind  me  looked  down  upon  a  scene  which  took  my 
breath  away.  The  Sangam,  the  sacred  triangle  below  us, 
was  covered  to  its  last  inch  by  a  swarming,  shifting, 
variegated  crowd.  Even  as  I  gazed,  the  sun,  which  had 
been  struggling  through  the  smoky  river-mist,  burst  into 
the  sudden  splendour  of  the  Eastern  day,  and  under  that 
radiant  light  the  rustling  throng  seemed  like  a  giant 
horde  of  gay  tropical  beetles,  settling  upon  a  flower-bed 
with  scintillating  scales  and  quivering  pinions. 

From  the  sort  of  private  box  or  balcony-stall  out  of 
which  we  had  our  view  of  this  vast  stage,  we  could  see 
that  the  crowd  was  all  alive  with  movement  and  aflame 
with  colour.  The  garish  tints  of  the  dyed  cotton  robes, 
orange,  and  purple,  and  sanguine  crimson,  and  emerald 
green,  coarse  and  crude  individually,  blended  into  an 
opulent  harmony,  from  which  now  and  again  the  sparkle 
of  polished  metal  ornaments,  or  the  flash  of  a  glass 
bracelet,  five  inches  deep  on  a  rich  brown  arm,  rose  like 
the  high  notes  of  the  violin  above  a  rolling  wave  of 
orchestral  music. 

The  crowd  went  down  to  the  river's  brink  beyond  it ; 
for  all  the  way  along  the  spit  the  shallows  were  alive 
with  bathers,  standing  immersed  to  the  waist,  ducking 
their  heads  under  the  surface,  scooping  up  the  dun  fluid 
in  the  cupped  hollows  of  their  hands,  or  throwing  it  over 
their  bodies,  so  that  the  water  was  foaming  and  spouting 
like  the  surf  of  the  sea  breaking  on  a  ragged  edge  of  beach 
when  the  tide  is  rising. 

The  throng  was  densest  just  under  our  bastion  at  the 
base  angle  of  the  three-cornered  Sangam,  where  a  bridge 
of  boats  led  to  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Ganges,  upon 
which  the   akharas   lay    encamped    like  a   great    army. 


204  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

Three-quarters  of  a  mile  further  up  the  river  another 
temporary  bridge  had  been  placed.  The  processions  were 
to  cross  this,  pass  along  between  the  Fort  and  the 
stream  to  the  Waters-meet,  and  then,  after  their  cere- 
monial bath,  re-form,  march  up  the  Sangam,  and  return 
to  their  camps  by  the  lower  of  the  bridges.  Between 
the  two,  the  level  stretch  was  beset  by  more  people 
than  I  ever  saw  on  an  English  racecourse ;  but  through 
the  midst  of  them  a  broad  track  was  kept  clear,  hedged 
by  a  weak  open  palisade  of  thin  laths,  and  guarded  by 
policemen  dotted  fifty  yards  apart.  A  child  could  have 
broken  down  the  flimsy  fencing  with  one  hand,  a  brigade  of 
infantry  could  not  have  kept  the  massed  spectators  back, 
if  they  had  chosen  to  sway  forward ;  but  till  the  proces- 
sions passed  the  course  was  left  inviolate,  save  for  the 
police  and  a  few  civil  officials,  who  rode  up  and  down  on 
horseback  to  see  that  everything  was  in  order. 

A  burst  of  wild  Eastern  music,  the  music  of  tom- 
toms and  pipes,  vague,  threatening,  inarticulate,  warns  us 
that  the  parade  has  begun.  Looking  up  the  course  from 
our  grand-stand,  we  see  it  approaching,  and  presently  it 
is  under  our  feet.  In  front  rides  an  Englishman  in 
tweeds  and  gaiters,  and  another  in  uniform  with  a  sword 
at  his  side.  They  are  the  District  Magistrate  and  the 
Superintendent  of  Police,  the  representatives  of  that 
haughtily  impartial  Government,  which '  views  with  equal 
eye  '  this  carnival  of  paganism  and  a  Methodist  school 
treat,  and  throws  the  same  shield  of  vigilant  guardianship 
over  both. 

The  two  officers  have  for  escort  a  squad  of  mounted 
police,  followed  by  a  score  of  constables  on  foot,  all  in 
khaki,  with  cerise  turbans.  Then  we  get  the  first  akhara, 
which  is  that  of  the  Nirbanis,  a  respectable  society, 
largely  drawn  from  the  Sikh  districts.  After  the  *  broken 
music  '   of  the  band,   tom-tomming  and  whistling  with 


THE  PILGRIM  FAIR  205 

energy,  we  have  the  now  familiar,  but  always  imposing, 
spectacle  of  a  dozen  great  elephants,  rolling  ponderously 
on,  with  the  sand  swirling  at  their  massive  knees  like 
the  bow- wave  before  a  battleship.  Housings  of  cloth  of 
gold  depend  from  their  painted  sides,  and  in  their  howdahs 
sit  various  notables  of  the  akhara. 

Then  come  chobdars  and  servants  in  handsome  liveries, 
men  carrying  feather  fans  and  gilt  umbrellas  and  great 
curled  silver  trumpets.  Follows  a  line  of  palanquins, 
through  whose  open  doors,  as  they  swing  past,  we  catch 
glimpses,  now  of  silk-clad  forms,  now  of  brass  images, 
recumbent  amid  flowers  and  garlands.  Behind  them  are 
the  banner-bearers,  holding  the  tall  poles  from  which 
droop  the  great  squares  of  embroidered  silk.  The  banners 
are  sometimes  exquisite  in  colour,  stiff  with  embossed 
designs  in  gold  and  silver  thread ;  but  the  staves  of  silver 
end  in  rough  wooden  hafts  wound  round,  for  more  con- 
venience in  carrying,  with  dirty  strips  of  rag  ;  for  we  are 
in  India. 

After  the  banner-bearers,  necks  are  craned  along  the 
palisade,  and  the  crowd  waits  in  hushed  expectancy  for 
the  detachment  of  specially  sanctified  Nagas  or  unclothed 
ascetics.  Slowly,  under  the  remorseless  daylight,  there 
marched,  two  by  two,  a  hundred  and  twenty  men,  naked 
as  God  made  them,  save  that  some  had  added  mutilations 
and  deformities  to  the  Creator's  handiwork,  and  others 
were  smeared  and  streaked  with  the  muddy  clay  of  the 
river.  One  of  the  leading  files  of  the  column  was  a  giant, 
a  swollen  hulk  of  grey  flesh,  and  in  his  arms  he  carried  a 
cramped  and  knotted  dwarf,  no  bigger  than  an  infant. 

The  strange  company  went  by  with  a  kind  of 
measured  gravity,  even  with  a  certain  dignity,  as  if  per- 
forming a  solemn  rite,  neither  flaunting  their  nudity  nor 
ashamed  of  it.  These  men  had  nothing  in  common  with 
the  half-insane  fanatics  who  wandered  about  the  camps 


206  A  VISION   OF   INDIA 

with  gibbering  tongues  and  obscene  gestures.  Some  of 
the  sadhus  and  mahatmas  before  us  were  celebrated 
pundits,  learned  in  all  the  learning  of  the  Vedas  and  the 
Shastras,  famous  teachers,  who  expounded  the  Sanskrit 
texts  to  thousands  of  disciples  beneath  the  branches  of  a 
wild  fig-tree,  or  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock. 

The  spectators,  male  and  female,  looked  on  without 
prurience,  without  flippancy,  without  shamefacedness ; 
only  a  low  reverential  murmur  broke  from  the  dense 
ranks  as  the  holy  men  paced  on,  with  silent  footfall, 
followed  by  their  rearguard  of  chelas  and  attendants. 
After  the  akhara  had  passed,  the  crowd  swarmed  all 
over  the  cleared  track ;  and  you  saw  men  throwing  them- 
selves down  at  full  length  to  touch  the  ground  marked 
by  the  sacred  footprints,  or  kneeling  to  take  up  handfuls 
of  the  dust,  and  carry  it  to  their  lips  and  foreheads. 

I  descended  from  my  perch,  and  came  down  with  a 
companion  to  the  level,  in  order  to  witness  the  approach 
of  the  Bairagi  akhara.  The  Bairagis  are  the  people  who 
cause  most  anxiety  to  the  authorities  on  these  occasions. 
They  are  imperfectly  controlled  by  their  leaders,  and  not 
at  all  particular  as  to  the  character  of  their  members. 
At  this  very  Mela  I  saw  a  man  arrested,  in  the  disguise 
of  a  Bairagi  fakir,  by  a  keen-eyed  Pathan  detective  from 
the  Punjab,  who  '  wanted '  him  on  a  charge  of  murder 
somewhere  in  the  North.  These  Bairagis  are  a  quarrel- 
some lot,  and  given  to  fighting  not  only  with  other 
akharas,  but  also  among  themselves  ;  for  they  are  divided 
into  three  sections,  which  have  disputes  over  precedence 
and  ceremonial,  as,  for  instance,  whether  the  processional 
banners  ought  to  be  carried  at  the  trail  or  erect  during 
the  march  to  the  Sangam.  Moreover,  they  prefer  to  do 
the  course  at  a  sprint,  instead  of  taking  it,  like  the  others, 
at  a  respectable  walking  pace. 

Looking   back   along  the   track   I   see  the   mounted 


ccccc        ccrr( 


t  c  c  •  • 


■  *■  •  (  c 
c  r  c  c 


THE  PILGRIM  FAIR  207 

police  cantering  their  horses  and  the  constables  on  foot,  a 
strong  body  this  time  in  five  ranks,  going  at  a  hard 
double.  Behind  them  the  akhara  of  the  Bairagis  is 
coming  on  in  a  sort  of  war  dance.  The  great  banners 
are  swaying  overhead  like  ships'  pennants  in  a  stormy 
sea,  the  palanquins  rock  perilously  upon  the  shoulders  of 
the  trotting  bearers,  and  fakirs  and  chelas  and  a  miscel- 
laneous crowd  of  hangers-on  are  bounding  and  shrieking. 

We  wait  until  they  have  passed,  and  then  go  down  to 
the  bathing-place  at  the  point  of  the  spit.  Here  every  pre- 
caution has  been  taken  against  accident.  A  kind  of  river- 
bath,  or  pool  of  shallow  water,  has  been  staked  off,  with 
wooden  shelters  round  it,  for  people  to  dress  and  undress, 
if  anybody  cares  about  that  convenience — which  most 
people  do  not.  There  are  covered  sheds,  built  over  the 
water,  for  the  benefit  of  female  bathers  who  are  purdah. 
Otherwise  it  is  the  mode  for  most  visitors  to  go  in  '  as  they 
are,'  and  assume  dry  garments  on  the  bank  or  as  they  are 
stepping  out.  An  Indian  woman  can  change  in  public 
from  a  wet  chudder  to  a  dry  one,  with  a  lightning-like 
celerity  that  would  baffle  a  music-hall  conjurer,  and  with- 
out exposing  more  than  a  glimpse  of  neck  and  shoulder. 

Outside  the  bathing-pool  there  are  some  of  the  boats 
of  the  famous  Benares  water-police,  smart  and  workman- 
like crews,  organised  by  the  local  District  Superin- 
tendent for  river  work  at  the  Holy  City.  Within  the 
space  there  are  several  flat-bottomed  police  punts.  We 
get  into  one  of  these  with  a  tall  Sikh  inspector,  and  push 
out  among  the  bathers,  who  are  ducking  and  diving  like 
water-ouzels,  and  rubbing  themselves  with  intent  earnest- 
ness, as  if  to  get  as  much  of  the  sacred  fluid  as  possible 
through  the  very  pores  of  their  skin. 

Anon  there  is  a  stir  among  the  crowd  on  the  shore, 
discordant  noises  are  heard,  and  with  yells  and  thrum- 
mings  the  second  akhara  of  the  Bairagis  comes  barging 


208  A  VISION  -OF  INDIA 

down.  They  rush  into  the  depths,  plunging  and  wallow- 
ing in  the  water  all  round  us,  like  a  shoal  of  black 
porpoises,  shouting  and  laughing  and  splashing  one 
another.  Fanatics  they  may  be,  but  they  are  in  the 
larkiest  of  moods,  and  as  merry  as  holiday  excursionists 
at  Blackpool.  Presently  they  begin  to  climb  into  our 
crazy  little  craft,  until  her  sides  sink  perilously  low,  and 
it  becomes  necessary  to  assist  the  Sikh  inspector  in  shoving 
them  off  and  plumping  them  back  into  the  water. 

They  take  it  all  with  excellent  temper,  and  only  respond 
by  allowing  a  good  many  of  their  splashes  to  come  in  our 
direction,  so  that  we  have  enough  of  the  sacred  Ganges 
upon  us  to  wash  some  of  our  sins  away  before  we  set  foot 
on  the  shore  again.  Many  people  will  tell  you  that  the 
Indian  native  is  sad  and  immobile,  with  no  sense  of 
humour.  He  may  seem  so  in  the  large  towns,  where  he 
is  out  of  his  element  and  cumbered  with  much  serving. 
But  when  you  see  him  in  the  villages,  or  on  the  road  or 
the  railway,  and  most  of  all  at  the  fairs,  he  seems  jolly 
enough,  with  a  ready  laugh  and  an  obvious  desire  to  find 
material  for  a  joke  on  the  smallest  provocation. 

The  noisy  Bairagis  were  seen  safely  back  to  their  camp 
at  last,  much  to  the  relief  of  the  police  officers.  Two  of 
their  sections  were  very  cross  and  sulky  with  one  another. 
On  one  of  the  subsequent  processional  days  I  learnt  that 
these  Bairagis  managed  to  get  up  a  serious  riot,  which 
could  only  be  quelled  by  calling  out  the  military;  on 
another  day  a  panic  arose,  owing  to  the  terrific  crush 
along  the  walls  of  the  Fort,  and  many  people  were 
trampled  under  foot  and  several  pushed  into  the  river 
and  drowned;  but  on  the  Sankrant  no  actual  collision 
occurred,  thanks  to  the  ubiquitous  vigilance  of  the  District 
Superintendent  and  his  assistants,  and  the  day  passed 
without  disturbing  incidents,  except  such  as  were  caused 
by  the  elephants. 


THE  PILGRIM  FAIR  209 

These  stately  animals,  I  regret  to  say,  were  '  supers.' 
They  had  been  lent  by  wealthy  zemindars  and  rajas  for  the 
occasion,  and  of  course  the  mahouts,  or  drivers,  went  with 
them  as  part  of  their  furniture.  There  were  not  enough 
elephants  to  go  round,  and  while  one  procession  was 
passing  over  the  second  bridge,  the  whole  elephant  corps 
was  driven  back  to  the  first  bridge  to  '  come  on  ■  with  the 
next  body.  But  the  mahouts  expected  a  fee  for  each 
trip;  and  at  the  very  height  of  the  proceedings  these 
worldly  men  struck,  and  refused  to  move  their  bulky 
beasts  unless  they  were  paid  then  and  there.  Demoralised 
by  this  evil  example,  one  of  the  elephants  subsequently 
bolted  into  the  Ganges,  and  declined  to  come  out  till  the 
following  morning. 

It  was  evening  before  all  the  processions  had  passed, 
and  the  sunset  was  turning  to  a  curtain  of  luminous 
orange  the  veil  of  dust  that  the  stirring  of  myriads  of 
feet  had  lifted.  Then  the  darkness  came  down,  and 
presently  the  moon  rose  and  shed  its  silver  flood  upon 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  making  their  way  along 
the  strand  and  through  the  maze  of  huts  back  to  the 
places  where  they  were  to  prepare  their  meals  and  lie 
down  to  sleep.  But  many  stopped  to  lay  their  offerings 
by  the  tiny  shrines,  at  the  waterside,  in  the  sandy  gullies, 
among  the  alley- ways  and  spaces  of  the  camps.  In  India 
the  gods  are  many  and  the  gods  are  strong;  and  none 
can  tell  what  harm  a  chance  neglected  deity  may  do.  So 
any  fakir  who  set  up  his  little  lamp  and  mat  before  his 
image  of  brass  or  painted  wood  was  sure  of  some  prayers 
and  some  pice. 

A  religion  of  terror,  they  tell  us,  much  more  than  one 
of  love.  And  yet  the  people,  as  I  saw  them  at  this  Pilgrim 
Fair,  were  gentle,  obedient,  temperate,  contented.  Is  it 
their  religion,  with  its  incredible  fantasies,  its  monstrous 
obligations,   which  has  made  them  thus,  or  have  they 

p 


210  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

become  so  in  its  despite  ?     But  the  question  drifts  us  into 
the  deeper  waters. 


Allahabad  is  one  of  the  nicest  of  Anglo-Indian  stations. 
The  globe-trotter  and  the  tourist  seldom  trouble  it ;  and 
the  stranger  can  find  himself  made  welcome  to  a  hospit- 
able circle,  large  enough  to  be  cheerful,  and  not  too  large 
to  be  intimate.  You  will  spend  pleasant  days  at  Alla- 
habad if  its  kindly  residents  take  to  you.  But  of  the 
Kumbh  Mela  you  will  hear  comparatively  little.  Local 
society,  except  the  officials  specially  concerned,  is  not 
deeply  interested  in  it.  It  has  its  own  affairs  to  attend 
to.  An  Allahabad  man  I  met  elsewhere,  shortly  after  my 
visit,  apologised  for  not  calling  upon  me  while  I  was  at 
the  town.  '  You  see,'  he  explained,  *  there  was  a  good 
deal  going  on  just  then.  It  was  the  week  of  the  Hockey 
Tournament,  and  that  always  brings  a  lot  of  people 
down  to  us.  I  daresay  you  noticed  there  was  rather  a 
crowd  about  the  place  ? ' 

'Yes,'  I  said,  '  I  did  notice  that.' 


211 


CHAPTEK  XV 
BENGAL  AND  BABUDOM 

The  voyager  who  comes  down  to  Calcutta  after  a  journey- 
through  the  *  mofussil '  may  feel  at  first  as  if  he  had 
suddenly  left  India  a  long  way  behind.  In  the  hot 
weather,  it  is  true,  the  undeniable  Indian  sun,  and  the 
feverish  breath  of  the  stewed  sodden  land-breeze,  may 
convince  him  of  his  error.  But  in  midwinter  the  climate 
is  only  just  warm  enough  to  be  comfortable,  and  the  air 
is  clean  bright  and  wholesome.  In  this  invigorating 
season  the  stranger  looks  about  him,  and  he  sees  people 
in  European  clothes  and  with  European  faces  walking — 
positively  walking,  not  driving,  or  riding,  or  bicycling — 
even  in  the  solid  hours  of  the  day,  strolling  across  or 
beside  a  broad  common,  which  is  neither  brick-red  nor 
dusty  yellow,  but  a  good  northern  green.  He  passes  a 
line  of  shops,  genuine  shops,  as  they  knowT  them  in  the 
West,  with  counters  and  plate-glass  windows.  He  per- 
ceives many  imposing  buildings,  not  Oriental  in  any 
sense,  but  stucco-classical,  or  pseudo-Gothic,  or  latter-day 
Eenaissance. 

A  further  touch  of  homeliness  is  imparted  by  the 
frequent  monuments  which  meet  the  vagrant  gaze.  Most 
of  the  Indian  cities  we  have  mercifully  forborne  to 
decorate  with  the  triumphs  of  modern  British  statuary. 
Our  cantonments  and  civil  stations  are  too  impermanent 
and  strictly  utilitarian  for  such  indulgences.  But  in 
Calcutta   the   statesman,    in    trousers    of    changeless   if 

p2 


212  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

wrinkled  bronze  stares  gloomily  from  his  pedestal,  the 
hero  curvets  on  a  circus-horse  of  tormented  marble. 
There  is  even  a  long  stone  cylinder,  which  resembles,  if  it 
does  not  consciously  imitate,  that  painful  column  which 
rears  itself  unashamed  over  the  steps  at  the  bottom  of 
Waterloo  Place,  S.W.  The  Duke  of  York  was  a  suffi- 
ciently bad  soldier  to  deserve  a  bad  monument ;  but  Sir 
David  Ochterlony  was  a  general  of  some  distinction,  and 
he  should  have  been  better  treated. 

Still  one  would  not  wish  the  Ochterlony  column 
away  from  the  Calcutta  Maidan,  nor  the  other  examples 
of  our  plastic  art  which  adorn  that  noble  stretch  of 
verdure.  Nor  would  one  care  to  see  them  denationalised 
or  made  much  other  than  they  are.  It  is  a  just  instinct 
which  has  dictated  that  the  new  Memorial  Hall  in 
honour  of  Queen  Victoria,  of  which  the  Prince  of  Wales 
laid  the  foundation-stone  during  his  visit,  shall  be  ■  clas- 
sical '  in  its  design,  with  no  suggestion  of  Orientalism  at 
all.  It  is  to  be  built  all  of  stainless  white  marble,  and  no 
doubt  it  might  be  made  very  splendid  with  domes  and 
minarets ;  but  so  conceived,  it  would  not  respond  to  the 
local  tradition.  Calcutta  is  an  English  city,  the  second  of 
the  Empire,  and  it  does  well  to  be  conscious  of  the  fact. 

It  is  a  city  which  owes  its  very  existence  to  English 
adventure,  and  its  greatness  to  English  rule.  We  are 
not  here  inheriting  past  stories  or  treading  in  the  steps 
of  fallen  dynasties.  But  for  the  English,  all  that  there 
now  is  of  Calcutta  would  to-day  be  no  more  than  a  few 
villages  scattered  among  the  swamps  of  the  Hooghly,  as 
it  was  when  Mr.  Job  Charnock  bought  the  site  for  the 
East  India  Company  two  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago. 

Charnock  lies  buried,  with  a  legible  inscription  over 
his  grave,  in  the  old  church  of  St.  John's,  with  his  native 
wife — not  beside  him ;  for  the  story  is  that  the  lady  was 
a  Hindu  widow,  whom  he  rescued  by  force  just  as  she 


BENGAL  AND  BABUDOM  213 

was  about  to  commit  suttee,  and  though  she  lived  with 
him  to  the  end,  and  bore  him  children,  she  was  never 
converted  to  Christianity,  and  died  a  '  pagan.'  Charnock, 
however,  was  the  first  of  the  line  of  great  merchants, 
statesmen,  administrators,  and  soldiers,  who  never  wavered 
from  the  determination  that  Calcutta  should  be  the 
Imperial  centre  of  British  power  and  commerce  in  the 
East. 

From  Charnock  to  Curzon :  it  is  a  long  and  notable 
succession,  through  Warren  Hastings,  Cornwallis,  Welles- 
ley,  Bentinck,  Dalhousie,  Canning,  Lawrence,  Lytton, 
Dufferin.  The  history  of  Calcutta  is  a  record  of  great 
names  and  great  events,  on  which  Englishmen  might 
be  excused  for  dwelling  with  much  more  self-satisfaction 
than  they  commonly  exhibit.  Thanks  largely  to  the  late 
Viceroy,  the  old  memorials  have  been  restored,  and  new 
ones  erected.  The  streets  are  full  of  associations.  In 
one  corner  of  the  Maidan  are  the  mounds  and  earth- 
works and  bastions  of  Fort  William,  a  name  which  ought 
to  make  our  hearts  beat  higher  when  we  think  of  Eobert 
Clive,  albeit  it  is  not  Clive's  Fort  William,  but  one  of 
slightly  later  date,  from  which  Lord  Kitchener  rules  the 
Indian  Army  of  to-day. 

Walking  from  the  stately  stairs  of  Government  House 
we  come  upon  Wellesley  Place,  which  recalls  one  famous 
proconsul,  and  Dalhousie  Square,  named  after  another. 
And  when  we  have  registered  our  letters  at  the  post- 
office,  we  can  shiver  at  the  tablet  on  the  corner  wall, 
which  tells  us  that  a  few  yards  distant  was  the  Black 
Hole,  that  torture-chamber,  twenty-two  feet  by  fourteen, 
where  146  human  beings  spent  the  night  of  an  Indian 
June;  and  we  can  walk  across  to  the  marble  obelisk, 
renovated  by  Lord  Curzon,  which  one  of  the  twenty- 
three  survivors  erected  to  the  memory  of  his  fellow- 
sufferers. 


214  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

Not  far  from  these  records  of  a  dire  tragedy  is 
Hastings  House,  which  has  been  restored  and  acquired 
by  the  Imperial  Government ;  and,  if  you  like,  you  can 
drive  out  past  the  common,  and  the  shops  and  offices 
and  Chowringhee,  along  the  line  where  the  electric  trams 
run,  past  the  bungalows  set  back  among  their  trees  and 
gardens,  past  Belvedere,  where  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  Bengal  lives,  and  where  Hastings  fought  his  famous 
duel  with  the  author  of  '  Junius,'  to  the  leafy  village- 
suburb  of  Alipore,  where  the  great  Proconsul  himself 
resided,  with  the  woman  whom  he  had  made  his  own 
under  such  strangely  romantic  circumstances.  One  need 
not  tell  the  story  again.  That  episode,  at  least,  is  familiar 
to  some  people  who  know  little  else  of  Anglo-Indian 
history,  for  in  these  gossip-loving  days  a  great  man's 
affairs  of  the  heart  are  apt  to  be  remembered  when  his 
works  are  forgotten. 

The  mention  of  Hastings  and  his  Austrian  Baroness 
and  the  Black  Hole  recalls  Macaulay,  the  first  writer  who 
brought  India  into  popular  English  literature.  We  can 
go  back  to  Chowringhee,  and  pass  through  the  hospitable 
portals  of  the  Bengal  Club — always  open  to  any  properly 
accredited  visitor — and  so  be  in  the  very  house  which 
Macaulay  himself  occupied  when  he  was  legal  member  of 
the  Governor-General's  Council.  Here  Macaulay  spent 
the  cold  weather  of  four  happy  years,  enjoying  himself 
hugely,  drafting  the  Penal  Code,  delighting  in  everything, 
in  the  society  of  the  statesmen  and  civilians  he  met  on 
the  Council,  in  the  big  salary  he  drew  (the  rupee  was  a 
rupee  in  those  days),  which  made  him  independent  for 
the  rest  of  his  life,  in  Orme  and  Tod  and  the  other 
historians,  and,  above  all,  in  the  life  and  colour  of 
the  wonderful  land  which  he  rendered  into  his  own 
animated  prose,  for  the  first  time  making  people  at  home 
realise  that  India  was  something  else  besides  a  country 


BENGAL  AND  BABUDOM  215 

whence  a  man  returned,  possibly  with  a  larger  income 
certainly  with  a  larger  liver. 

It  is  as  a  home  of  English  trade  even  more  than 
a  seat  of  English  statesmanship  that  Calcutta  impresses 
one.  The  factors  and  merchants  of  the  East  India 
Company  may  have  been  founding  an  Empire,  to  use  the 
late  Sir  John  Seeley's  phrase,  in  a  fit  of  absence  of  mind. 
Perhaps  they  had  no  consciousness  of  the  political  results 
of  their  enterprise,  and  shrank  from  the  dominion  which 
their  generals  and  vicegerents  compelled  them  reluctantly 
to  acquire.  But  they  did  intend  that  Calcutta  should  be 
a  world-centre  of  trade,  the  British  mart  and  emporium 
for  the  Eastern  Continent.  Here  they  laid  their  founda- 
tions broad  and  deep,  and  the  building  has  endured  and 
waxed  exceeding  great. 

There  is  an  air  of  solidity  and  permanence  about  Euro- 
pean Calcutta  which  is  wanting  to  most  of  the  English 
settlements  in  India.  Soldiers  and  civilians,  who  are 
merely  encamped  on  the  soil  for  a  term  of  years,  and  that 
broken  by  frequent  flights  homeward,  need  not  be  too 
particular  as  to  their  accommodation.  Soon  the  bunga- 
low and  the  garden  will  be  left  to  others,  and  the 
transient  tenant  will  never  care  to  look  on  them  again. 
Under  such  conditions,  people  naturally  do  not  build  and 
plant  for  posterity. 

With  the  merchants,  and  particularly  the  merchants 
of  the  days  before  fast  steamers,  it  was  otherwise.  Erom 
the  beginning  they  felt  they  were  on  the  Hooghly  to  stay. 
The  trader  could  not  often  be  leaving  his  business  to  take 
holiday,  when  the  voyage  to  Europe  occupied  months  and 
there  were  no  hill-stations.  Calcutta  was  to  be  his  home 
for  perhaps  the  greater  part  of  his  life,  and  when  he  left 
or  died,  the  firm  would  go  on,  and  there  would  be  others 
to  take  his  place.  It  was  worth  while  to  set  up  an  office 
or  warehouse  that  would  endure,  and  a  house  in  which 


216  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

a  man  might  live  in  comfort,  even  through  the  hot 
weather. 

&o  the  old-time  traders  built  fine  mansions,  spacious 
and  durable,  planned  with  no  more  concession  to  Eastern 
ideas  than  was  necessary  for  shelter  against  the  Eastern 
sun.  You  see  these  stately  dwelling-houses  behind  the 
masts  and  funnels,  as  you  steam  up  the  river  along  Garden 
Eeach.  Society  has  deserted  this  quarter  now;  it  has 
migrated  to  others  nearer  the  centre  of  the  city  and  the 
Maidan,  and  here  the  manufacturers,  the  men  of  business, 
and  the  high  officials  live,  in  handsome  houses,  behind 
white  walls,  over  which  the  bougainvilleas  droop  their 
purple  blossoms. 

In  most  of  the  Indian  cities  the  members  of  the 
governing  race  are  poor,  and  what  wealth  there  is  seems 
to  be  chiefly  in  native  hands.  But  Calcutta  in  this 
respect  differs  noticeably  from  its  rival  on  the  West  coast. 
Bombay,  as  its  residents  will  sometimes  bitterly  tell  you, 
is  almost  ceasing  to  be  a  white  man's  town :  the  Asiatic  is 
so  pushing  and  so  thriving.  But  the  Bengal  capital  is 
still  the  seat  of  a  highly  affluent  European  community, 
which  dominates  commerce  in  spite  of  the  Hindu  baniya 
and  the  versatile  Marwari  dealer.  The  great  jute-mills, 
the  cotton-mills,  the  ironworks,  the  shipping  lines,  are  in 
Western  hands.  It  is  a  thriving  manufacturing  centre, 
where  England  holds  her  own,  though  the  Germans  are 
active  too :  a  haunt  of  comfortable  people,  who  can  afford 
to  dress  their  wives  in  garments  for  which  the  up-country 
ladies  sigh  in  vain,  to  give  resplendent  dinner-parties,  to 
keep  half  a  dozen  excellent  clubs  in  high  prosperity,  and 
to  make  the  Tollygunj  racecourse  on  a  Cup  day  look 
rather  like  Ascot  or  Goodwood. 

It  is  a  great  native  town,  too,  though  it  is  not  one  of 
which  white  Calcutta  affects  to  be  proud.  It  has  the 
squalor  of  the  East,  without  its  picturesque  colour — a. 


BENGAL   AND  BABUDOM  217 

nest  of  mean  streets,  unpaved,  dirty,  and  shabby,  lined 
with  dingy  shops  and  malodorous  hovels.  The  poorest 
bazaars  of  most  Indian  cities  have  a  redeeming  touch  of 
local  character ;  but  in  Calcutta  they  are  Western  or  cos- 
mopolitan. There  are  busy  thoroughfares,  which  are  as 
ugly  as  the  working-class  suburbs  of  an  English  seaport ; 
there  are  rows  of  small  houses,  where  the  Chinese  car- 
penter plies  his  trade ;  and  there  are  back  alleys  which 
have  the  shiftless  untidy  aspect  of  Southern  Europe. 
Native  Calcutta  is  like  some  of  her  own  citizens :  she  has 
departed  from  the  ways  of  the  East  only  to  produce  a  very 
poor  travesty  of  the  West. 

Yet  there  is  an  Oriental  Calcutta  which  is  still 
primitive  enough,  and  you  need  not  go  far  to  find  it.  You 
may  see  it  any  morning,  close  beside  the  great  Howrah 
bridge,  over  which  the  clerks  and  shop-assistants  and 
labourers  are  pouring  in  to  their  work  in  an  endless 
stream,  like  that  which  rolls  across  London  Bridge  or 
Blackfriars.  A  stone's  throw  distant  is  the  pile  of  steps 
leading  down  to  the  river,  from  which  the  people  bathe 
in  crowds;  for  the  Hooghly  is  a  branch  of  the*  Ganges 
and  its  waters  are  credited  with  the  virtues  of  that 
sacred  stream.  They  come  from  remote  inlandfcdistricts 
of  Bengal,  from  Bihar  and  Orissa,  from  Sikkim  and  Assam. 

It  is  a  curious  manifestation.  The  railway  trundles 
its  goods-trucks  close  at  hand,  waggons  laden  with  bales 
from  the  mills  creak  along  the  road  behind  the  bathers, 
the  chains  and  mooring-ropes  of  tramp  steamers  and  iron 
lighters  are  before  them.  In  the  dust  by  the  roadside, 
where  the  groaning  wheels  of  the  big  trollies  almost  touch 
it  as  they  pass,  a  little  altar  to  Ganesh  has  been  set  up. 
A  Brahman  crouches  beside  the  hideous  four-armed  image, 
and  a  worshipper,  naked  to  the  waist,  listens  with  joined 
hands  and  half-closed  eyes  while  the  holy  man  goes 
through  his  muttered  incantations,  careless  of  the  railway 


218  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

and  the  goods  waggons  and  the  passers-by  in  European 
garments,  and  the  knot  of  native  Christians  formed  into 
a  little  circle  and  lustily  singing  a  Salvation  Army  hymn 
in  Bengali. 

Or  you  may  go  any  Tuesday  morning  to  the  shrine  of 
Kali,  at  Kalighat  which  is  the  original  of  Calcutta,  where 
you  may  see  Hinduism  in  one  of  its  more  rampant  phases. 
Through  a  rookery  of  reeking  narrow  lanes,  leading  up 
from  a  muddy  creek,  you  come  upon  the  black  little 
courtyard,  with  its  group  of  temple  buildings,  in  one 
of  which  is  the  idol  of  the  Destroying  Goddess.  The 
place  is  swarming  with  people,  some  still  dripping  from 
their  bath,  some  holding  moist  and  bleating  lambs  and 
kids,  which  are  to  be  offered  up  in  sacrifice  after 
being  soused  in  the  slimy  canal.  There  is  a  sort  of 
butchers  block  in  a  corner,  round  which  congregate 
half-draped  priests,  wild-looking  and  dirty.  One  of  them 
presses  a  wretched  animal's  neck  into  a  hollowed  cavity 
of  the  wooden  frame ;  another  swings  a  long  curved 
cleaver  aloft,  and  with  a  single  blow  slices  off  the  head, 
leaving  a  spout  of  blood  to  join  the  crimson  pool  on  the 
slippery  flagstones.  Then  the  palpitating  little  body  is 
carried  into  the  inner  temple  to  be  offered  to  the  idol, 
round  which  an  eager  crowd  is  pressing. 

It  is  not  a  nice  spectacle,  and  we  quit  it  without  re- 
luctance. As  we  pass  out  of  the  squalid  precincts  our 
attention  is  directed  to  a  square  pool,  set  back  in  a  sort  of 
hollow  behind  the  temple  and  the  priests'  houses.  A 
single  white-robed  female  figure  is  bowing  and  prostrating 
itself  at  the  water's  edge,  a  figure  whose  attitude,  even 
through  the  shrouding  veil,  is  instinct  with  a  sort  of  de- 
spairing pathos.  For  this  is  a  childless  woman,  who  is 
beseeching  the  goddess  to  lift  from  her  the  worst  afflic- 
tion but  one  that  Indian  womanhood  can  endure.  Her 
prayers,  at  least,  are  genuine,  whatever  may  be  the  case 


BENGAL   AND  BABUDOM  219 

with  the  savage  revellers  in  the  temple  slaughter-house. 
But  the  gongs  of  the  electric  tramcars  are  clinking 
merrily  at  the  end  of  the  road ;  and  as  we  step  into  one  in 
order  to  get  back  to  Chowringhee  we  reflect  that  there 
is  a  good  deal  of  unvarnished  Indian  Orientalism  even 
in  Europeanised  and  babu-ridden  Calcutta. 

To  the  English  resident  the  typical  Bengal  native  is 
the  babu,  the  man  of  the  clerkly,  semi-educated,  class.  It 
is  certainly  not  that  rather  interesting  person's  own  fault 
if  he  is  not  well  known.  He  has  pretty  nearly  the  best 
brains  in  India  and  the  readiest  tongue.  His  memory  is 
prodigious  and  his  fertility  in  talk  inexhaustible.  He  is 
something  of  an  Irishman,  something  of  an  Italian,  some- 
thing of  a  Jew:  if  one  can  conceive  an  Irishman  who 
would  run  away  from  a  fight  instead  of  running  into  it, 
an  Italian  without  a  sense  of  beauty,  and  a  Jew  who 
would  not  risk  five  pounds  on  the  chance  of  making 
five  hundred.  He  is  very  clever,  but  his  cleverness 
does  not  lead  him  far  on  the  road  to  achievement ;  for 
when  it  comes  to  doing,  rather  than  talking,  he  is  easily 
passed  by  people  of  far  inferior  ability.  The  wealth  of 
Bengal  is  not  exploited  by  him ;  the  profits  of  the  local 
industry  are  not  his  to  reap. 

He  has  shown  little  of  the  capacity  of  the  indigenous 
native  in  Bombay  for  asserting  himself  successfully  in 
trade.  The  active  Par  sis,  the  shrewd  Hindus  of  the 
Presidency  and  the  Dekhan,  are  getting  the  business  of 
the  Western  capital  into  their  hands,  buying  up  the  shares 
in  the  old  cotton-mills  or  starting  new  ones,  elbowing  the 
Europeans  out  of  commercial  and  financial  enterprise. 
The  Bengalis  have  developed  differently.  The  banks,  the 
offices,  the  engineering-works,  the  cotton-mills,  the  jute- 
factories,  are  still  English. 

If  the  mercantile  predominance  of  the  ruling  race  is 


220  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

threatened  it  is  not  by  the  Bengalis,  but  by  immigrants 
from  the  other  side  of  India,  who  carry  on  most  of  the 
trade  and  much  of  the  finance.  The  babu  orator  pero- 
rates about  Bengal  for  the  Bengalis ;  but  he  allows  the 
Marwari  to  come  from  the  deserts  of  Bajputana  and 
pluck  away  the  most  lucrative  commerce  from  under  his 
very  nose. 

The  reason,  or  part  of  it,  was  given  to  a  friend  of 
mine  by  a  wealthy  Marwari  merchant,  with  whom  he  was 
discussing  the  Swadeshi  movement.  'The  Bengali/  he 
said,  'may  talk  about  native  industries  as  much  as  he 
pleases;  but  they  will  do  no  good  to  him.  In  all  the 
larger  kind  of  business  he  will  not  hold  his  own  with  us. 
And  I  will  tell  you  why.  The  Bengalis  have  no  power  of 
initiative,  and  they  have  no  mutual  confidence.  They 
will  not  take  the  risk  of  starting  a  new  enterprise.  They 
are  afraid  to  strike  out  for  themselves,  and  they  do  not 
trust  one  another.  A  Bengali  would  not  care  to  hold 
shares  in  any  joint-stock  concern  run  by  another  Bengali, 
and  if  the  stock  fell  a  point  he  would  be  half -dead  with 
anxiety  until  he  had  sold  out,  even  at  a  loss.  Now  I,' 
added  the  man  from  the  West, '  should  not  have  grown  as 
rich  as  I  am  if  I  had  not  known  how  to  trust  my  fellow- 
countrymen.  If  a  Marwari,  whom  I  have  never  seen 
before,  comes  to  me  and  asks  for  goods  on  a  three-months 
credit,  I  let  him  have  them  without  a  contract.  I  take 
his  word  for  it  that  he  will  pay  me  when  the  time  comes. ' 
Suspicious  and  timid  people  are  obviously  unsuited  for 
the  great  operations  of  modern  commerce,  which  demand, 
above  all  other  qualities,  confidence  and  courage. 

There  are  many  other  kinds  of  work  in  the  capital 
city  which  the  native  of  Lower  Bengal  does  not  perform. 
Policemen,  postmen,  messengers,  tramcar-drivers,  are  up- 
country  men,  from  Bihar  or  Chota  Nagpur  or  the  United 
Provinces ;  so,  too,  are  many  of  the  workers  in  the  factories 


BENGAL  AND  BABUDOM  221 

and  mills.  The  managers  are  mostly  Europeans,  as  well 
as  the  foremen  and  inspectors.  The  owners  would  prefer 
the  native  article  if  they  could  get  it  of  the  right  quality. 
For  the  imported  overseer  is  expensive.  The  capable 
Scots  mechanic,  who  might  be  earning  thirty-five  shillings 
a  week  in  Dundee,  will  have  to  be  provided  with  three  or 
four  hundred  pounds  a  year,  and  perhaps  a  house,  when 
he  gets  out  to  the  banks  of  the  Ganges.  His  native  sub- 
stitute is  far  cheaper,  and  if  he  is  a  Bengali,  intelligent, 
well-taught,  and  capable  of  mastering  detail,  he  may 
understand  the  work  equally  well.  But  the  employers 
say  that  he  cannot  be  depended  upon,  and  that  he  is  apt 
to  lose  his  head  and  his  nerve  at  moments  of  crisis.  He 
makes  a  good  subordinate,  and  does  very  well  in  quiet 
times  and  when  things  are  going  smoothly.  But  he  is 
no  daring  pilot  in  extremity,  and  when  the  storm  runs 
high  he  may  forget  to  keep  a  steady  hand  on  the  helm. 

That,  at  least,  is  the  English  view  in  Bengal,  where  it 
is  not  favourable  to  the  children  of  the  soil.  In  some 
other  parts  of  India,  in  the  Punjab,  the  North-west,  and 
Bajputana,  you  may  find  plenty  of  Englishmen  express- 
ing real  regard  for  the  natives  of  their  district.  But  you 
might  be  a  long  time  in  Bengal  without  hearing  a  good 
word  spoken  for  the  Bengali.  The  Englishman  frankly 
does  not  like  him,  nor  does  he  for  his  part  entertain  any 
profound  affection  for  the  English.  The  gap  between 
the  races  here  yawns  very  widely.  Calcutta  is  full  of 
natives  who  speak  what  they  regard  as  the  English 
language,  wear  the  English  dress  slightly  modified,  and 
read  English  newspapers.  But  I  doubt  if  there  is  much 
more  community  of  feeling  between  them  and  the  gentle- 
men who  frequent  the  Bengal  Club  and  the  United 
Services  Club  than  there  was  between  the  cringing 
Orientals  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  '  nabobs '  and 
merchant  princes,  who  lived  sumptuously  in  the  great 


222  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

mansions   by  the  river-side  that  are  the  warehouses  of 
to-day. 

And  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  Bengali,  be  he 
peasant  or  pleader,  is  not  the  kind  of  person  who  naturally 
wins  his  way  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  heart.  He  is  not 
picturesque,  like  the  wild  man  of  the  North  with  his 
martial  air  and  swashbuckling  swagger,  nor  simple  and 
manly  like  the  sunburnt  cultivator  of  the  Central  dis- 
tricts. In  outward  appearance  he  is,  in  the  lump,  by  no 
means  attractive.  He  is  rather  short,  and  so  dark  that 
Anglo-Indians  seem  almost  justified  in  describing  him  as 
a  black  man ;  he  walks  abroad  with  his  round  bullet 
head  often  bare  of  any  covering  at  all — a  mode  which 
seems  scarcely  decent  to  an  eye  that  has  become  habit- 
uated to  the  graceful  folds  of  the  many-coloured  turban. 
If  poor,  he  arrays  himself  in  a  scant  drapery  of  dingy 
white ;  if  well-to-do,  he  shuffles  along  in  a  tweed  coat,  a 
cotton  dhoti,  and  cheap  leather  shoes. 

His  diet  of  rice  and  oily  butter  and  sweetmeats  induces 
corpulency ;  and  the  richer  he  is  the  more  of  this  inflating 
food  he  eats,  and  the  fatter  he  gets  and  flabbier.  Of  late 
years  the  young  men  have  taken  to  various  athletic  sports 
and  pastimes,  and  the  figures  of  the  newer  generation 
tend  to  be  a  good  deal  less  pronounced  than  those  of 
their  elders.  But,  except  in  the  way  of  pastime,  the 
civilised  Bengali  is  not  fond  of  muscular  exertion;  he 
prefers  the  sedentary  labour  of  the  bureau,  or  the 
security,  and  possible  perquisites,  of  an  official  post.  This 
is  the  object  of  his  ambition,  and  in  the  hope  of  it  he 
endures  the  stress  of  lectures  and  classes  and  examina- 
tions. To  place  his  son  within  reach  of  such  a  prospect 
the  small  landowner,  the  tradesman,  even  the  farmer,  sends 
him  to  school  and  college  and  encourages  him  to  take  a 
degree,  or  at  least  to  try  for  one. 

With  his  memory,  and  his  power  of  assimilation  in  a 


BENGAL  AND  BABUDOM  223 

rapid  superficial  fashion,  he  accommodates  himself  easily 
to  the  examination  system,  and  has  a  well-grounded  belief 
that  he  could  beat  most  English  youths  of  his  own  years 
at  the  game.  That  is  why  there  is  a  demand  for  throwing 
open  the  covenanted  Civil  Service  to  simultaneous  com- 
petition in  India  and  England,  in  which  case  a  fair  pro- 
portion of  the  posts  would  be  sure  to  fall  to  *  Indian 
gentlemen '  from  the  Ganges  delta. 

The  babu  makes  an  excellent  minor  official ;  indeed, 
all  India  ought  to  be  grateful  to  him,  for  it  would  not  be 
too  much  to  say  that  the  administration  of  the  country 
could  hardly  be  run  without  him,  so  largely  is  he  employed 
in  doing  the  clerical  work  and  filling  the  subordinate 
offices.  Properly  supervised,  he  does  useful  service,  being 
adaptable  and  intelligent,  with  more  capacity  than  most 
other  natives  for  learning  to  write  and  read  English. 
As  we  all  know,  he  learns  it  rather  too  well,  having  a 
taste  for  ornate  sentences  and  mellifluous  phrases,  mingled 
with  fragments  of  idiomatic  colloquialism.  Much  easy 
wit  has  been  expended  over  babu-English,  which  is, 
indeed,  a  peculiar  dialect.  At  a  certain  railway-station  a 
female  milk-vendor  caused  some  annoyance  to  the  ticket- 
collector,  who  sat  down  and  composed  a  letter  to  her 
employer  in  the  following  terms  : 

Horned  Sir, — I  beg  you  will  remove  your  hand- maiden  of 
milk,  as  she  is  not  good  fellow,  and  we  cannot  stand  her  cheeks. 

Other  samples  can  be  obtained  by  the  visitor  in  every 
Indian  club  and  mess-room.  But  most  people  have  their 
own  collection  of  babuisms>  even  if  they  do  not  remember 
those  which  Mr.  Anstey  has  so  ingeniously  invented.  We 
need  not  make  too  much  of  them.  If  English  boys  had 
to  read  the  Chinese  classics  at  school,  and  to  learn  Chinese 
from  masters  who  had  never  been  nearer  China  than 
Dover  beach,  I  daresay  their  literary  style  would  cause 


224  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

amusement  in  Peking.  We  teach  our  young  Hindus  a 
little  English  grammar  under  native  instructors,  and 
then  feed  them  on  Shakespeare  and  Addison,  on  Gibbon, 
Scott,  Dickens,  and  Kuskin.  No  wonder  the  result  is  a 
little  mixed. 

Education  (of  a  sort)  has  been  spread  widely  in 
India,  and  the  Bengali  takes  to  it  as  a  young  duck  takes 
to  water.  Colleges  are  numerous,  and  very  cheap,  and 
the  ladder  from  the  back  bazaar  to  the  University  is  easy 
to  climb.  But  though  the  ascent  is  gentle,  there  are  a 
good  many  tumbles.  Yet  even  the  unsuccessful  candidate 
has  achieved  something. 

It  is  better  (in  Bengal)  to  have  gone  in  for  an  exam- 
ination and  been  plucked  than  never  to  have  tried  at  all. 
The  Failed  B.A.  has  a  recognised  status,  and  proudly 
mentions  his  qualifications  when  applying  for  a  post. 
The  head  of  a  great  establishment  tells  me  that  every 
week  he  is  solicited  by  gentlemen  who  offer  this  singular 
testimonial  of  mitigated  efficiency.  One  even  sees  adver- 
tisements :  *  Wanted  a  Failed  B.A.,  with  some  knowledge 
of  typewriting ' ;  the  advertisers  being  no  doubt  shrewd 
as  well  as  economical  persons  who  believe  that  they  may 
get  good  value  for  their  money  even  out  of  the  slightly 
inferior  article  which  has  not  •  satisfied  the  examiners.' 

As  for  the  B.A.  who  has  not  failed,  but  arrived,  he  is, 
of  course,  eligible  in  various  ways.  His  price  in  the 
marriage-market  is  increased.  A  Bengali  father  expects 
to  pay  cash  for  the  bridegroom  before  he  can  get  his 
daughter  off,  and  the  value  of  a  B.A.,  I  am  credibly  in- 
formed, is  assessed  in  some  circles  at  two  thousand  rupees, 
while  the  M.A.  may  be  worth  as  much  as  four  thousand. 
For  a  man  of  this  higher  academic  standing  may  be 
expected,  not  only  to  get  a  good  situation  himself,  but  to 
do  something  for  his  family,  and  perhaps  even  to  put 
pickings  in  the  way  of  a  deserving  father-in-law. 


BENGAL  AND  BABUDOM  225 

The  college  man,  failed  or  otherwise,  who  does  not 
get  a  post  in  the  public  service  or  in  private  employ- 
ment often  fares  badly.  Bengal  is  full  of  educated  or 
semi-educated  hangers-on,  waiting  for  something  to  turn 
up.  It  is  this  material  of  which,  in  every  country,  agi- 
tators are  made,  and  in  Bengal  they  are  numerous  and 
voluble.  Some  of  them  take  to  journalism  and  write 
anti- Administration  articles  in  a  swarm  of  vernacular 
newspapers. 

Many  more  gravitate  to  the  law,  and  become  pleaders, 
or  attorneys,  or  barristers ;  for  India  has  a  passion  for 
litigation,  and  there  is  some  sort  of  a  living  to  be  made  by 
a  whole  host  of  practitioners,  from  the  Small  Cause  Court 
lawyer,  who  touts  for  clients  at  two  rupees  a  case,  to  the 
leader  in  the  Calcutta  High  Court,  who  earns  an  income 
which  would  be  deemed  handsome  in  Lincoln's  Inn.  The 
law  is  the  one  profession  in  which  the  Bengalis  more  than 
hold  their  own  with  Europeans.  The  'black  Bar'  in 
Calcutta  is  pushing  out  the  white,  which  has  a  pretty 
hard  struggle  for  existence  ;  for  the  native  barrister  is 
sometimes  a  man  of  real  capacity,  an  able  lawyer,  a  clever 
cross-examiner,  and  a  first-rate  forensic  orator. 

The  calling  suits  the  Bengali,  with  his  subtlety,  his 
ingenuity,  and  his  readiness  of  speech.  And  when  pro- 
moted from  the  Bar  to  the  Bench  he  often  does  very  well 
there.  The  High  Courts  and  Chief  Courts  of  the  various 
Provinces  are  seldom  without  native  Judges,  who  obtain 
and  deserve  the  respect  of  their  European  colleagues; 
and  much  of  the  minor  judicial  work  throughout  the 
country  is  performed  by  Hindus  and  Mohammedans.  It 
is  for  the  higher  responsibilities  of  executive  business 
that  the  Bengali,  with  some  rare  exceptions,  is  supposed 
to  be  unfitted.  For  that  needs  character  and  courage 
and  firmness;  and  these  are  qualities  in  which  he  is 
commonly  deficient,  according  to  the  received  opinion  not 

Q 


226  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

only  of  most  Europeans,  but  also  of  many  natives  outside 
his  own  Provinces. 

When  everybody  says  the  same  thing,  that  thing  is 
usually  untrue.  But  it  is  difficult  to  resist  the  consensus 
of  testimony  that  the  native  of  Lower  Bengal  is  not,  to 
put  it  gently,  a  person  of  conspicuous  valour.  He  is 
credited  with  being  able  to  yield  to  the  menace  of  physical 
violence  without  any  sense  of  humiliation.  One  hears 
stories  like  that  (possibly  apocryphal)  anecdote  of  the 
Bengali,  travelling  in  the  train  with  his  wife,  who  sum- 
moned a  drunken  sailor  for  kissing  the  lady.  When  asked 
why  he  made  no  attempt  to  prevent  the  outrage,  he 
replied,  *  Your  Honour,  I  am  a  fearful  man.' 

I  have  seldom  met  an  Anglo-Indian  who  doubted  that 
the  inhabitant  of  this  region  was  a  *  fearful  man/  though 
I  have  encountered  an  educated  Hindu  from  another  part 
of  the  Peninsula  who  flatly  denied  it.  He  ascribed  the 
theory  to  a  famous  passage  in  Macaulay's  Essays,  which, 
he  said,  had  given  the  Bengalis  a  false  character  for 
cowardice  with  the  English  reading  public. 

It  is  highly  probable  that  the  habitual  timidity  of 
these  people  has  been  exaggerated.  The  Bengalis  used  to 
be  great  faction-fighters,  and  still  are  so  in  some  of  the  rural 
districts,  where  they  will  turn  out  and  pummel  each  other 
with  bamboos  and  staves  in  a  vigorous  and  bloodthirsty 
fashion.  The  rule  is  that  the  fight  stops  when  a  man  is 
killed,  and  it  is  said  that  the  party  which  is  getting  the 
worst  of  the  engagement  will  sometimes  slay  one  of  their 
own  side.  This  serves  a  twofold  purpose.  It  brings  the 
battle  to  an  end,  and  it  enables  the  vanquished  combatants 
to  lay  a  charge  of  murder  against  their  opponents. 

Biots,  indeed,  of  one  kind  or  another  are  not  at  all 
infrequent  in  Bengal.  The  Anglo-Indian  view  is  that  if 
a  single  unarmed  individual  falls  among  a  body  of  Ben- 
gali rioters  he  will  be  in  great  danger ;  but  that  a  dozen 


BENGAL   AND  BABUDOM  227 

policemen  will  subdue  the  largest  and  most  turbulent  mob. 
Some  courage,  at  any  rate,  the  young  men  of  Bengal 
undoubtedly  display.  They  have  taken  to  cricket,  and 
will  stand  up  boldly,  without  pads  or  gloves,  to  the  fastest 
bowling.  They  play  football,  too,  in  bare  feet,  and  can 
make  a  good  match  with  Thomas  Atkins  in  his  thickest 
ammunition  boots. 

But  if  the  Bengalis  are  not  all  cowards,  they  are 
certainly  unwarlike.  There  is  no  people  in  the  world  with 
less  taste  for  martial  glory.  It  is  said  that  all  the  millions 
in  Lower  Bengal  do  not  contribute  one  single  sepoy  or 
sowar  to  the  ranks  of  the  British-Indian  army. 

As  we  know  him  best  and  hear  most  about  him,  the 
Bengali  is  a  babu.  Yet  all  babudom  would  make  but  a 
small  island  in  the  sea  of  population  that  floods  the  valley 
of  the  Lower  Ganges  and  the  lands  adjacent.  The  true 
vocation  of  the  man  of  Bengal,  away  from  artificial  urban 
conditions,  is  that  of  the  agriculturist.  If  you  want  to 
see  him  au  naturel,  you  must  leave  the  great  cities  and 
the  railways,  and  wander  among  the  villages  which  cluster 
all  over  the  rich  alluvial  plain.  Very  different  are  they 
from  the  bare  brown  mud-walled  hamlets  of  the  North. 
The  tiny  cottages,  with  their  conical  roofs  of  thatch,  look 
like  beehives ;  and  like  bees  the  people  swarm  in  and  out, 
and  over  the  rice-grounds,  and  among  the  lanes  'shadowed 
by  palm-trees  and  bamboos.  There  is  no  solitude  on  this 
countryside,  for  it  is  such  a  breeding-ground  of  human 
animals  as  exists  scarcely  anywhere  else  on  earth,  outside 
China.  Here,  as  he  hoes  and  rakes  his  fields,  with  sedu- 
lous though  slovenly  labour,  or  lies  under  the  spreading 
banyan-tree  during  the  heat  of  the  day,  or  walks  by  his 
bullock-cart  along  the  road,  above  all  when  he  sits  and 
gossips  outside  his  shanty  in  the  evening  with  his  brood 
about  him,  the  Bengal  peasant  seems  fairly  content,  in 
spite  of  malaria,  the  fever,  the  moneylender,  and  the  land- 


228  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

lord.  If  he  is  poor  enough  in  the  world's  goods,  he  is 
usually  rich  in  sons  and  daughters  and  uncles  and  aunts 
and  cousins  and  nephews ;  for  he  is  essentially  a  family 
man,  soft  and  kindly  and  philoprogenitive,  and  he  esteems 
himself  happiest  when  his  quiver  is  fullest.  Indeed,  in 
the  plenitude  of  his  paternal  bounty  he  does  not  limit  his 
regard  to  his  male  offspring,  but  will  sometimes  even 
display  a  quite  demonstrative  affection  for  a  favourite  little 
daughter;  and  he  will  mortgage  his  financial  future  for 
years,  in  order  that  she  may  be  suitably  married,  with  all 
the  honours  of  a  ruinously  expensive  wedding-feast,  at 
the  mature  age  of  seven. 


229 


CHAPTEE  XVI 
IN    THE    SOUTHLAND 

When  you  pass  from  the  North  of  India  to  the  South 
you  realise  once  again  the  greatness  and  the  diversity  of 
the  vast  territory.  The  traveller  who  has  been  spending 
some  weeks  or  months  in  Kajputana,  the  Punjab,  the 
United  Provinces,  and  Bengal,  may  begin  to  presume 
that  he  has  got  his  orientation  with  some  approach  to 
correctness,  and  may  even  be  rashly  inclined  to  believe 
that  he  is  coming  to  know  something  about  India.  But 
he  will  find  that  many  of  his  bearings  have  to  be  taken 
afresh  when  he  gets  into  the  Southland.  The  aspect 
of  the  country  is  changed — its  scenery,  its  peoples,  its 
architecture,  its  flora  and  fauna,  its  languages. 

The  voyager  discovers  that  the  smattering  of  collo- 
quial Hindustani  he  has  laboriously  acquired  is  of  small 
use  to  him.  That  extraordinary  dialect,  which  was  made 
up  in  the  camps  of  the  Northern  invaders,  and  is  more 
or  less  understood  by  two  hundred  millions  of  people, 
is  nearly  unknown  to  the  majority  of  the  remaining 
hundred.  The  servant,  brought  from  Bombay  or  Cal- 
cutta, is  almost  as  much  at  a  loss  as  his  master,  when 
talking  to  a  Telugu-speaking  coolie  or  a  Tamil  tonga- 
driver,  and  he  often  has  to  fall  back  on  English  as  a 
common  medium  of  communication. 

This,  by  the  way,  is  one  of  the  points  that  first  attracts 
attention.  In  the  North  and  West,  English  is  the 
language  of  the  sahibs  and  the  Eurasians,  and  of  them 


230  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

almost  alone.  Even  in  Bombay  and  Calcutta,  with  their 
English  shops  and  business  houses,  and  a  European  popu- 
lation several  thousands  strong,  you  cannot  make  yourself 
understood  without  some  slight  acquaintance  with  the 
vernacular.  But  in  Madras,  if  you  address  a  porter,  a 
policeman,  an  hotel  waiter,  or  any  casual  native,  in  your 
own  tongue,  the  chances  are  that  he  will  answer  you  in 
fairly  correct  and  grammatical  English.  In  the  Southern 
Presidency  it  is  not  at  all  unusual  for  ladies  and  gentle- 
men to  talk  to  their  servants  habitually  in  English,  and  I 
have  met  residents  of  some  years'  standing  who  know  next 
to  nothing  of  the  vernacular.  I  do  not  say  that  the  mem- 
sahib  of  the  other  Provinces  is  always  an  accomplished 
linguist ;  but  she  has  to  pick  up  a  little  colloquial  Hindu- 
stani or  Bengali  or  Guzerati,  since  otherwise  she  would 
hardly  be  able  to  convey  her  wishes  to  her  domestics 
at  all. 

The  contrast  throws  light  on  a  whole  chapter  of  his- 
tory. It  reminds  us  that  we  have  been  in  Madras  longer 
than  anywhere  else.  When  you  stand  by  the  earthworks  of 
Fort  St.  George,  and  look  out  upon  the  line  of  surf  break- 
ing upon  the  shore,  you  are  at  the  seat  of  our  Empire  in 
the  East.  In  a  large  part  of  the  North  we  are  but  new- 
comers. It  is  only  the  other  day,  so  to  speak,  that  we 
annexed  Oude  ;  I  met  old  men,  and  at  least  one  old  lady, 
in  Lucknow,  who  were  living  there  when  the  Moham- 
medan kings  still  misruled  in  that  noble  city.  In  the 
Punjab  we  have  not  been  settled  much  longer;  in  the 
Frontier  Province  we  are  hardly  settled  yet. 

But  in  Madras  the  English  have  been  at  home  for  not 
far  short  of  three  hundred  years.  The  agents  of  the  East 
India  Company  planted  themselves  upon  that  coast,  by  the 
old  Portuguese  settlement  of  San  Thome,  while  Charles 
the  First  was  still  King  of  England;  and  there  they 
remained,  trading,  working,  fighting  hard  at  times  with 


TYPES    OF    THE    SOUTHLAND. 


Ht(  C    C   C    t  C 

C  C •  <  OC«l« 


c  c  c  c 

'  •  •  m  • 


IN  THE  SOUTHLAND  231 

the  ■  Moors '  and  the  French,  but  constantly  increasing 
the  extent  of  their  territories  and  the  number  of  their 
subjects. 

Madras,  like  Calcutta,  is  a  city  mainly  of  English 
creation;  and  though  it  has  been  outpaced  by  its  later 
rivals,  it  had  its  three  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  when 
both  Bombay  and  Calcutta  were  small  and  struggling 
towns.  Thus  the  traders  and  the  officials  have  had 
more  time  to  teach  the  people  English;  and,  perhaps, 
because  these  latter  are  of  more  malleable  fibre  than  the 
men  of  the  North,  and  because  they  have  no  such  massive 
literature  as  that  of  the  Sanscrit  to  fortify  them,  they  have 
yielded  more  easily  to  the  speech  of  the  conqueror ;  and 
they  use  it  with  a  readiness  for  which  the  tourist  would 
bless  them,  if  he  came. 

But  he  does  not  come.  Madras  lies  beyond  his  radius, 
together  with  all  the  Southern  States,  including  plea- 
sant Mysore  and  picturesque  Hyderabad.  Anglo-Indians 
themselves,  unless  business  or  officialdom  places  them 
there,  know  little  of  Madras,  and  are  accustomed  to 
speak  of  it  with  a  certain  contemptuous  patronage.  It  is 
the  benighted  Presidency,  left  outside  the  main  sweep  of 
Indian  life,  rather  backward  and  deficient  in  enterprise, 
with  an  inferior  administrative  record  and  a  degenerate 
people.  The  '  best  men  '  of  the  Civil  Service  always  go 
to  the  Punjab,  the  second  best  to  the  United  Provinces 
and  Bengal ;  Madras  puts  up  with  the  leavings.  So  one  is 
told  in  the  superior  North,  and  warned  further  that  there 
is  nothing  to  see  and  nothing  to  do  in  this  hot  and  com- 
fortless abode  of  the  unworthier  black  races,  persons  of 
low  stature,  who  cannot  even  fight.  The  visitor  is  pre- 
pared to  expect  little  that  will  furnish  him  with  interest 
and  entertainment  in  the  South  country,  and  looks  for- 
ward to  enduring  it  with  resignation  and  leaving  it  without 
regret. 


232  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

And  he  is  agreeably  disappointed.  It  is  one  of  the 
many  illusions  and  disillusions  of  his  Indian  experiences. 
When  he  was  in  the  Punjab  he  saw  reasons  for  doubting 
whether  the  administration  of  that  important  and  self- 
conscious  province  is  so  supremely  able  and  successful  as 
it  professes  to  be ;  or  whether  the  Punjab  official  himself, 
excellent  as  he  often  is,  has  not  been  a  little  over-praised. 
Conversely,  when  he  comes  to  Madras  and  its  daughter 
states  and  dependencies,  he  will  seek  in  vain  for  evidence 
of  inefficiency  or  stagnation.  He  will  find,  on  the  con- 
trary, all  the  signs  of  a  Government  which  understands 
its  business,  and  studies  the  interests  of  its  subjects,  and 
watches  over  them  with  a  vigilant  care. 

If  he  enters  the  Presidency  by  train  from  the  North 
he  will  reach  a  certain  frontier  station,  at  which  he  and 
his  fellow-passengers,  including  the  screaming  horde  from 
the  third-class  vans,  are  turned  out  for  plague-inspection 
purposes.  A  doctor,  with  his  native  assistants,  proceeds 
to  take  the  dossier  of  the  whole  complement,  ascertains 
where  everybody  comes  from,  makes  a  medical  examina- 
tion in  cases  of  doubt,  and  finally  issues  an  elaborate 
certificate,  testifying  that  the  incomer  is  to  remain  under 
observation  and  report  himself  during  the  first  ten  days 
after  his  arrival.  It  is  a  little  annoying,  and  the  aggrieved 
European  grumbles  freely;  but — Madras  has  kept  itself 
almost  clear  of  plague,  while  Bombay,  with  a  very  similar 
climate,  has  been  decimated  by  the  disease. 

Madras  has  a  flourishing  educational  system,  and  can 
boast  more  persons  per  thousand  who  can  read  and  write 
than  any  other  province  in  India,  except  Burma,  which, 
of  course,  is  not  India  at  all  in  any  but  the  administrative 
sense.  Its  roads  seem  excellent,  and  its  railways  not 
below  the  ordinary  Indian  standard.  Its  Public  Works 
Department  may  fairly  challenge  comparison  with  that 
of  the  very  best  of   its  rivals.     I  have  said  something 


IN  THE  SOUTHLAND  233 

already  of  the  Punjab  irrigation  schemes  and  colonies. 
Magnificent  as  these  are,  they  do  not  surpass,  in  bold- 
ness of  conception  and  brilliancy  of  execution,  the  great 
dams  of  the  South,  by  which  the  fitful  rivers,  rushing 
wildly  at  one  season  from  their  mountain  reservoirs, 
and  trickling  weakly  along  their  parched  channels  at 
another,  have  been  tamed  and  rendered  subservient  to 
the  uses  of  man. 

Moreover,  it  is  in  Mysore,  which  is  a  geographical  and 
political  adjunct  to  Madras,  that  the  most  serious  and 
successful  effort  has  been  made  to  develop  the  mineral 
resources  and  the  natural  agencies  of  India.  Some  of 
the  richest  mines  in  the  world  are  being  worked  on  the 
Kolar  goldfields;  and  the  Sivasamudram  power-station, 
where  the  falls  of  the  Cauvery  are  used  to  develop  elec- 
trical energy,  is  laid  out  on  a  scale  which  is  not  to  be 
met  with  again  until  we  get  across  the  Atlantic.  A  visit 
to  the  Sivasamudram  works  and  then  to  the  Mysore 
mines  does  not  leave  on  the  mind  the  impression  that 
Southern  India  is  effete. 

Nor  is  it,  as  the  supercilious  Northerner  will  some- 
times aver,  a  repellent,  a  disagreeable,  or  a  forbidding 
land.  Quite  the  contrary.  It  is  a  commonplace  to 
observe  that  the  South  is  the  India  of  the  picture- 
books;  but  one  cannot  help  repeating  the  saying,  for 
its  truth  is  self-evident.  Here  at  last  you  can  find  that 
for  which  you  have  been  searching,  with  expectant  and 
baffled  gaze,  for  many  weeks.  The  brown  deserts  of 
Kajputana,  the  stony  hills  of  the  Borderland,  the  rock 
walls  and  snow-capped  pyramids  of  the  Himalayas,  the 
bare  rifted  plains  of  the  Upper  Ganges  valley,  the  rice- 
fields  of  Lower  Bengal,  the  forts  and  tombs  and  palaces 
of  the  old  royal  cities — all  these  are  interesting  enough. 
But  they  are  not  the  India  of  tradition,  the  India  of 
our  youth ;  and  in  the  midst  of  them  we  are  sometimes 


234  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

impelled  to  ask  when  India — the  real  India — is  going  to 
begin. 

It  begins  when  the  night  mail  from  Calcutta  has 
carried  you  clear  of  Orissa,  and  you  wake  in  the  morning 
to  find  yourself  among  'the  palms  and  temples  of  the 
South/  amid  villages  set  deep  in  broad-leaved  tropical 
plants,  cactus  and  aloe.  Here  are  the  Indians  that  we 
have  all  known;  not  the  gaunt,  bearded  peasants  of 
the  upper  regions,  nor  the  bullet-headed  stout  Bengali, 
but  the  brown  half-naked  folks,  with  large  gentle  eyes, 
and  with  vestments  of  red  and  blue,  such  as  the  Apostles 
wear  in  the  old  coloured  nursery  Bibles. 

These  Canarese  and  Telugus  and  Tamils  command  no 
great  amount  of  respect  either  from  Europeans  or  from 
the  natives  of  the  other  Provinces.  They  are  not  among 
the  fighting  races ;  they  furnish  a  very  small  contingent 
to  the  armies  of  the  King-Emperor,  and  the  head- 
quarters staff  thinks  so  poorly  of  them  that  it  has  almost 
abolished  Madras  as  a  recruiting-ground.  Yet  all  the 
virtues  of  the  world  are  not  military,  and  these  South- 
erners seem  to  me  a  rather  attractive  people.  They  have 
the  reputation  of  being  ill-looking,  except  the  high-caste 
Brahmans,  among  whom,  indeed,  you  will  find  faces  not 
easily  beaten  for  perfection  of  feature  and  intellectual 
distinction.  I  have  seen  a  Brahman  lawyer  of  Madras 
who  could  have  sat  for  the  model  of  Giotto's  'Dante,' 
and  another  who  might  have  passed  for  Phoebus  Apollo 
in  cream-coloured  marble. 

It  needs  no  ethnological  expertness  to  select  the 
1  Aryan '  strain  of  this  aristocracy  of  birth  from  the 
Dravidian  masses.  These  same  Dravidians  are  dark  and 
low  of  stature  and  sometimes  negroid  in  type ;  but  they 
seem  healthy  and  sturdy,  their  chocolate  skins  are  sleek  and 
clear.  They  are  a  lively,  good-tempered  folk ;  very  poor, 
I  am  told  ;  extremely  lazy,  I  make  no  doubt ;  but  kindly, 


IN   THE   SOUTHLAND  235 

humorous,  and  placable,  except  when  they  are  roused  into 
frenzy  by  fanaticism.  They  have  the  Southern  insou- 
ciance, and  some  touch  of  Southern  artistry,  in  their  selec- 
tion of  bright  colours  that  go  unerringly  with  their 
dusky  tones  of  skin,  and  in  the  classic  grace  with  which 
they  loop  their  scanty  drapery  over  one  shoulder  leaving 
the  other  bare  as  the  Greek  often  did.  For  picturesqueness 
I  saw  no  festal  crowds  in  India  to  beat  those  which 
assembled  to  greet  the  Prince  of  Wales  on  his  entry  into 
Madras  and  Mysore.  Some  of  the  groups  of  women,  in 
glowing  robes  of  orange  or  magenta  or  deep  blue,  made 
splendid  clumps  of  colour,  as  they  lined  the  roofs  or  were 
framed  in  the  recesses  of  verandahs  and  arcaded  windows. 
Madras  itself  seemed  to  me  one  of  the  most  desirable 
of  the  larger  Indian  towns.  I  did  not  notice  anything 
which  struck  me  as  resembling  the  attitude  or  demeanour 
often  ascribed  to  this  fine  city.  We  have  been  told  to 
see  in  the  capital  of  the  South  only 

A  withered  beldame  now, 
Dreaming  of  ancient  fame. 

But  Madras  looks  more  like  a  matronly  beauty  than  a 
faded  old  hag.  She  may  be  dreaming  of  ancient  fame, 
but  she  has  many  present  amenities  to  comfort  her.  It 
is  a  city  of  '  magnificent  distances ' — far  ampler  even 
than  those  of  Washington.  The  five  hundred  thousand 
inhabitants  are  spread  out  over  an  area  almost  compar- 
able to  that  occupied  by  the  five  millions  of  Londoners. 
And,  like  London,  the  capital  of  the  South  is  not  so 
much  a  town  as  an  agglomeration  of  villages.  They  are 
linked  together  by  wide  open  tree-shaded  roads,  flanked 
by  gardens  and  meadows. 

In  Madras  you  find  that  the  compounds  are  the  largest 
in  India,  so  that  quite  insignificant  official  personages  or 
private  individuals  have    their   three  or  four    acres  of 


236  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

ground,  and  many  have  small  estates,  like  miniature  parks, 
with  lawns  and  groves  and  kitchen  gardens  and  pasture- 
land.  They  are  well  housed,  for  they  are  able  to  live  in 
handsome  roomy  bungalows,  such  as  people  built  in  the 
spacious  old  Anglo-Indian  days,  before  they  began  to  be 
cramped  by  rising  prices  and  a  falling  rupee.  Space  is 
treated  with  a  kind  of  lavish  disdain  in  Madras,  where, 
in  the  middle  of  the  municipal  area,  you  come  upon  a 
great  grassy  maidan,  a  sort  of  Hampstead  Heath  or 
Putney  Common,  upon  public  offices  surrounded  by  leafy 
glades  and  flower-beds,  upon  watercourses  and  river- 
channels,  and  native  hamlets  and  plantations  of  palm-trees. 

Social  life,  too,  seems  to  glide  along  with  a  certain 
Southern  ease  and  freedom,  untroubled  either  by  over- 
important  officialdom  or  by  great  wealth,  as  in  the  other 
two  capitals.  There  are  no  jute  or  cotton  magnates  or 
Parsi  millionaires  in  Madras,  and  no  Viceregal  Court,  too 
dignified  to  be  quite  accessible.  Everybody  knows  every- 
body else — within  the  limits  of  the  knowable  and  the 
clubable,  of  course ;  there  is  much  meeting  and  tea- 
drinking  at  the  Adyar  Club,  where  you  can  sit  on  the 
pleasant  lawns  by  the  riverside,  and  watch  the  fours 
swinging  along,  and  the  pairs  and  skiffs  putting  off  from 
the  adjacent  Boat  Club,  and  almost  fancy  yourself  by 
the  reaches  of  the  upper  Thames  on  some  warm  summer 
afternoon. 

But  Madras  is  not  too  much  lapped  in  ease  to  be 
indolent  and  careless ;  nor  does  it  at  all  confirm  the  im- 
pression, which  you  may  have  brought  with  you,  that  it 
is  drifting  behind  the  world.  The  fine  harbour,  a  purely 
artificial  creation,  in  which  ships  like  the  Benown  and  the 
Terrible  can  moor  alongside  the  wharves,  is  a  proof  that 
the  city,  even  though  she  may  now  be  a  little  out  of  the 
main  stream  of  commerce,  does  not  despair  of  her  future ; 
nor  has  she  lost  the  energy  which  made  a  great  port  and 


IN  THE   SOUTHLAND  237 

world-famous  trade  centre  of  this   strip  of  wind-swept 
surf-beaten  sand. 

As  you  drive  along  the  Marina,  and  watch  the  famous 
catamarans — the  boats  whose  name  you  have  known,  and 
whose  picture  you  have  seen,  all  your  life — skimming  their 
way  across  the  fidgeting  waves,  you  wonder  anew  at  the 
vigour  and  the  genius  which  turned  this  strand  into  the 
seat  of  an  Empire.  And  you  look  again  at  the  mounds  of 
Fort  St.  George,  and  also  you  marvel  why  Madras  thinks 
so  little  of  her  one  immortal  name.  In  common  with  the 
rest  of  India,  she  seems  to  have  forgotten  Robert  Clive. 
She  has  a  statue  of  Neill,  the  man  of  Cawnpore  and 
Lucknow,  one  of  the  gallant  soldiers  of  the  Mutiny.  But 
of  a  far  greater  than  Neill  and  the  other  Mutiny  heroes 
she  has,  I  think,  no  memorial  at  all.  I  am  not  sure  that 
there  is  a  single  monument  to  Clive  in  the  whole  of  India. 
We  have  yet  to  do  justice  to  the  man  to  whom,  more 
than  any  other  human  being,  we  owe  our  Empire  of  the 
East. 


238  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 


CHAPTEK  XVII 
GOLD  AND  WATER-POWER 

Mysore  is  one  of  the  best  governed  of  Indian  native 
States,  and  the  most  important  in  Southern  India,  except 
that  of  the  Nizam.  For  nearly  half  a  century  it  was 
under  British  management ;  and  when  we  handed  it  back 
to  the  reigning  dynasty,  twenty-five  years  ago,  we  did  so 
with  a  first-rate  Anglicised  administration,  which  the  late 
Maharaja,  assisted  by  a  native  Prime  Minister  of  ex- 
ceptional ability,  maintained  intact.  They  even  intro- 
duced further  improvements,  creating  a  ^Representative 
Assembly,  which,  it  is  true,  is  not  allowed  to  do  anything 
in  particular,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  is  permitted  to  talk 
as  freely,  and  almost  as  long,  as  it  pleases. 

There  are  many  interesting  things  to  see  and  do  in  this 
pleasant  little  country.  Good  shooting  is  to  be  had,  and 
the  Prince  of  Wales  was  taken  to  the  great  keddahs,  where 
the  wild  elephants  are  caught  and  corralled,  with  the 
assistance  of  traitorous  tame  giants  of  their  own  species. 
Those  whom  history  tempts  more  than  sport  can  drive 
out  from  the  bright  Eesidenz-Stadt,  where  the  Maharaja 
is  building  what  will  be  the  finest  and  most  artistic- 
ally important  modern  palace  in  India,  to  the  famous 
but  now  ruined  city  of  Seringapatam,  where  the  last 
rounds  in  the  fierce  struggle  for  the  Carnatic  were 
played  off  between  the  British,  the  French,  and  the 
Mohammedans. 


GOLD  AND    WATER-POWER  239 

When  I  took  the  trip  to  Tippoo  Sahib's  old  capital  it 
was  in  a  motor-car  on  a  clear  warm  morning,  some  hours 
before  the  Koyal  party  were  expected  to  make  the  same 
journey.  Many  people  were  passing  along  the  nine  miles 
of  road,  lined  with  green  mangoes  and  spreading  banyans 
and  other  trees  of  the  forest,  as  roads  so  often  are  in 
India.  The  villagers  had  been  ordered  to  keep  the  track 
moist  for  the  august  visitors,  and  they  stood  in  groups 
to  see  our  unfamiliar  machine  go  by — men  with  their 
white  togas  flung  over  one  shoulder,  and  women,  statuesque 
and  graceful  in  their  crimson  and  orange  robes,  with  the 
great  brass  lotas  balanced  on  their  heads.  Sometimes  we 
came  upon  roadside  hamlets,  with  the  goats  and  buffalo- 
calves  straying  in  and  out  of  the  byres,  amid  brown 
laughing  children ;  or  upon  the  shepherd,  with  his  long 
staff  and  long  mantle,  walking  solemnly  at  the  head  of 
his  flock. 

At  Seringapatam  there  is  much  to  see  if  one  is  in 
the  sight-seeing  mood.  They  show  you  the  beautiful 
mausoleum  with  the  tombs  of  Tippoo  Sultan  and  Hyder 
Ali,  those  sturdy  Moslem  tyrants,  with  whom  we  had 
pretty  nearly  the  toughest  of  all  our  fights  for  India; 
and  the  tomb  of  General  Baillie,  who  died  a  prisoner  in 
Tippoo's  hands.  One  may  also  see  the  dungeon  arches 
where  Major  Baird,  a  hot-tempered  Scots  officer,  was  kept 
in  captivity  for  three  years  and  a-half,  chained  to  a  native 
warder.  '  I'm  sorry  for  the  chiel  that's  tied  to  oor  Davie,' 
said  Baird's  mother  when  she  was  made  acquainted  with 
this  arrangement. 

But  Mysore  has  interests  which  are  in  no  way  con- 
nected either  with  archaeology,  with  history,  or  with 
sport.  The  Kolar  gold-mines  lie  in  this  State,  and  their 
names,  Champion  Keef,  Mysore,  Ooregum,  and  the  rest, 
are  known  to  thousands  of  people  in  places  where  they 
buy  and    sell    shares,    who  perhaps   would  find   some 


240  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

difficulty  in  explaining  precisely  where  they  are.  The 
Kolar  district  is  now  one  of  the  leading  goldfields  of  the 
world,  and  it  is  able  to  throw  two  million  pounds'  worth 
into  the  common  stock  of  the  precious  metal  every  year. 
And,  in  order  that  the  mines  may  be  worked  with  economy 
and  efficiency,  the  State  Government  has  established  a 
scheme  for  transmitting  to  them,  over  ninety  miles  of 
intervening  country,  the  electric  energy  developed  in  its 
power-station  at  the  Falls  of  the  Cauvery  Biver. 

There  is  nothing  in  India,  or  in  all  Asia,  more  re- 
markable in  its  own  way  than  this  skilful  and  successful 
effort  to  utilise  and  transmute  some  of  the  wasted  force  of 
Nature ;  and  it  says  much  for  the  Mysore  Administration, 
under  its  late  Diwan,  the  clever  Brahman  statesman,  Sir 
Seshadri  Iyar,  that  it  had  the  courage  and  foresight  to 
carry  out  and  finance  this  project.  The  Sivasamudram 
power-station,  planned  by  a  clever  Anglo-Canadian 
engineer,  Major  de  Lotbiniere,  K.E.,  but  fitted  up  by  an 
American  company,  and  run  by  American  managers,  is 
worth  coming  a  long  way  to  see,  by  those  who  are 
interested  in  the  future,  as  well  as  in  the  present  and  the 
past,  of  India. 

But  not  many  people,  save  those  whom  business  takes 
there,  ever  do  think  of  seeing  Sivasamudram.  For  one 
thing,  it  is  not  easy  to  reach.  It  is  thirty  miles  from 
the  nearest  railway-station,  and  it  was  not  thought 
necessary  to  bridge  the  distance  even  by  a  tramway  or 
construction-line  for  the  transport  of  heavy  machinery. 
Men  and  animals  are  too  cheap  in  India  for  such  assist- 
ance to  be  required.  The  dynamos,  the  turbines,  all 
the  weighty  forgings  and  huge  pipes  and  tubes,  were 
brought  in  on  bullock-carts,  at  a  rate  per  ton  with  which 
mechanical  transport  could  not  compete. 

There  is  no  passenger  traffic  in  the  remote  and  solitary 
river-bottom  where  the  works  lie.     The  officials  have  a 


•  o  (  t  c 


r  c  c  •  ( 
•  «  <»c 


e  c  c  c  c 
6  c  c  c  c 


GOLD  AND  WATER-POWER  241 

tonga  service  to  and  from  Maddur  station,  on  the  line 
between  Mysore  and  Bangalore ;  bat  it  was  temporarily 
suspended  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  because  all  the  vehicles 
were  needed  at  Mysore  and  the  Eoyal  shooting-camp. 
The  only  possible  mode  of  conveyance  was  the  native 
country  cart,  which  is  called  a  jutka ;  and  so  in  jutkas  a 
companion  and  myself  determined  to  traverse  the  thirty 
miles  from  Maddur  to  Sivasamudram.  Experienced 
residents  at  Mysore  obliged  us  beforehand  with  lurid 
descriptions  of  the  horrors  of  this  method  of  transport, 
which  they  assured  us  was  fit  only  for  the  dura  ilia  of 
the  native.  In  the  result  we  did  not  fare  so  badly,  though 
I  should  not  recommend  the  trip  to  anyone  solicitous  as 
to  his  personal  comfort. 

You  become  acquainted  with  various  strange  machines 
in  your  passage  through  the  Empire  of  India.  There  is 
the  two-horsed  tonga,  with  the  pole  running  right  under 
the  body  of  the  carriage,  and  the  single-horsed  ekka,  with 
a  similar  arrangement  of  shafts,  both  of  which  are  apt  to 
tip  you  out  backwards  if  not  properly  balanced  ;  there  is 
the  Burmese  chaise,  which  has  been  described  as  a 
decayed  match-box  dragged  by  an  enlarged  rat ;  and  there 
is  the  bullock-cart,  drawn  by  two  trotting  zebus  with 
painted  and  brass-tipped  horns,  which  is  so  pretty  to  look 
at  that  you  almost  forgive  its  absence  of  springs.  For 
rancid  discomfort  the  jutka  is  in  the  first  flight.  It  is 
like  a  costermonger's  barrow  turned  the  other  way  about, 
with  a  pony  between  the  handles,  and  it  is  provided  with 
a  sort  of  beehive  or  dome-shaped  cover  of  plaited  straw. 
It  is  about  two  feet  wide,  and  the  floor  slopes  steeply 
from  front  to  back.  A  whole  family  of  natives,  men, 
women  and  children,  can  contrive,  in  some  acrobatic 
fashion  of  their  own,  to  huddle  up  inside  it ;  but  a  single 
moderate-sized  European,  with  a  moderate-sized  suit-case, 
finds  himself  badly  cramped  for  space. 

B 


242  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

I  crawled  under  the  tilt,  and  discovered  that  when  I 
tried  to  sit  up  my  hat  was  in  contact  with  the  low  roof  ; 
and  when  I  attempted  to  lie  down  my  legs  protruded  in- 
decently beyond  the  tail-board.  Moreover,  the  concern 
was  redolent  of  that  mingled  odour  of  garlic,  cocoa-nut 
oil,  and  warm  humanity,  which  the  native  leaves  behind 
him,  and  every  time  I  moved  clouds  of  dust  arose  from 
the  sacking  which  covered  the  boards.  The  pony  was  a 
minute  country-bred  framework  of  gaunt  skin  and  jagged 
bone,  and  I  formed  the  worst  anticipations  when  I  re- 
flected that  I  had  thirty  miles  to  travel  by  this  agency, 
under  a  searching  afternoon  sun  which  pierced  the  straw 
covering  as  if  it  were  tissue-paper. 

However,  the  ragged  Mohammedan  driver  was  willing, 
and  the  pony  belied  his  appearance.  We  went  along  at 
a  smart  ambling  trot  that  carried  us  over  the  ground  at 
an  unexpected  speed  ;  and  when,  after  a  dozen  miles,  we 
stopped  to  change  horses,  our  wiry  little  animal,  as  soon 
as  he  was  released,  took  a  long  roll  in  the  dust,  and  then, 
espying  a  tethered  stallion  about  twice  his  own  size, 
went  up  to  him  with  a  snort  and  began  a  spirited  fight. 
The  jutka  covered  the  thirty  miles,  with  two  relays  of 
ponies,  in  little  more  than  three  hours.  It  delivered  us 
at  the  inspection-bungalow  of  the  power-station  in  time 
to  sit  down  to  dinner  with  the  State  Engineer  and  the 
manager  of  the  scheme,  Americans  both,  and  as  hospit- 
able and  as  keenly  interested  in  their  work  as  American 
men  of  business  and  experts  usually  are  wherever  you 
meet  them. 

The  next  morning  I  went  all  over  the  installation 
with  my  genial  hosts,  and  marvelled  much  at  what  I 
saw.  It  seemed  strange  to  hear  the  familiar,  kindly 
American  locutions ;  stranger  still  to  witness  this  superb 
example  of  American  mechanical  skill,  here  amid  these 
lonely  hills  in  the  heart  of  Asia.    It  is  a  beautiful  corner 


GOLD  AND  WATER-POWER  243 

of  country  which  the  engineers  have  annexed,  albeit,  one 
heard  with  regret,  much  troubled  by  malaria — a  country 
of  bold  headlands  and  scooped  hollows  and  flashing 
waters.  Near  Sivasamudram,  which  is  just  at  the  point 
where  Mysore  State  and  the  Madras  Presidency  touch, 
the  Cauvery  makes  its  spring  of  four  hundred  feet  from 
the  Dekhan  upland  to  the  lower  level  of  the  coast  region. 
Down  the  mountain  stairs  the  swift  river  hastens,  gushing 
through  clefts  and  gorges  in  foaming  cataracts,  or  pouring 
in  fleecy  torrents  over  the  sheer  black  surface  of  the  cliffs. 
One  lovely  cascade  hangs  like  a  floating  bridal  veil  of 
silvered  gauze  upon  the  brow  and  shoulder  of  the  mountain, 
and  loses  itself  in  a  rock-bound  basin  of  still  green  water 
at  the  foot. 

A  couple  of  miles  above  the  Falls,  the  Cauvery  broadens 
out  into  a  shallow  boulder-strewn  bay  before  gathering 
itself  for  its  downward  plunge.  Here  is  a  long  stone 
bridge  of  native  workmanship,  perched  on  a  hundred  little 
rough  pillars,  rude  and  primitive  to  the  eye,  but  which 
yet  can  stand  unharmed  the  fiercest  violence  of  the  river 
when  it  roars  and  races  in  the  madness  of  its  flood  orgy. 
Hard  by  the  engineers  have  thrown  their  dam  across 
the  channel,  and  placed  weirs  and  gates,  through  which 
the  water  is  led  by  four  long  aqueducts  or  canals  to  the 
penstocks  that  feed  the  turbines  four  hundred  feet 
below.  Eound  about  the  pond  or  forebay,  at  the  head  of 
the  great  steel  pipes,  are  clustered  the  offices  of  the 
power-station,  the  bungalows  where  the  managers  and 
officials  live,  their  little  club  and  recreation-ground,  and 
the  neat  brick  huts  of  the  workpeople  and  coolies. 
Here  also  are  the  fitting-shops,  where  skilled  mechanics 
do  the  repairs  necessary  for  keeping  the  machinery  in 
order ;  and  the  drum  and  winding-engine  of  the  tramway 
which  runs  down  the  perpendicular  face  of  the  cliff 
alongside  the  penstocks. 

r2 


244  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

We  take  our  seats  in  the  trolley,  and  in  a  couple  of 
minutes  are  in  the  generating-shed  at  the  lower  level  of 
the  river.  In  the  long  brick  building  we  find  the  row 
of  turbines,  the  wheels  set  with  little  cups  round  their 
tyres,  which  are  receiving  the  impact  of  the  solid  core  of 
fluid  as  it  pounds  out  of  the  penstocks.  Our  expert  guides 
explain  to  us  the  score  of  elaborate  devices  employed  to 
regulate  the  flow,  so  that  each  wheel  spins  its  allotted 
three  hundred  revolutions  per  minute,  no  more  and  no 
less,  and  they  show  us  the  chains  and  bridles  which 
render  the  angry  river  nixies  obedient,  if  not  willing, 
slaves  to  man. 

Opposite  the  turbines  is  ranged  the  line  of  dynamos ; 
and  you  can  stand  between  these  two  files  of  imprisoned 
iron  monsters,  and  know  that  the  miracle  is  being 
wrought  in  your  presence.  The  Spirits  of  the  Waters  are 
transmuted  into  the  Spirits  of  the  Ether,  and  the  inert 
stored  forces  the  river  has  gathered  from  the  rain-clouds 
are  turned  into  the  fiery  energy,  which  is  carried  through 
a  few  thin  strands  of  wire  to  the  engine-houses  and 
stamping-mills  of  the  Kolar  goldfields  nearly  a  hundred 
miles  away. 

Eleven  thousand  horses,  with  all  the  thunder  of  their 
trampling  hoofs  and  the  strain  of  their  quivering  limbs, 
could  not  equal  the  power  which  those  few  purring  boxes  of 
-steel  and  copper  evolve ;  and  the  engineers  hope  to  work  up 
to  a  full  capacity  of  twenty  thousand  horse-power  before 
long.  Even  in  the  East  you  feel  that  the  new  magic  is 
more  potent  than  the  old,  the  machine  mightier  after  all 
than  the  crude  force  of  flesh  and  blood  and  tissue,  though 
they  be  spent  with  uncalculating  -prodigality. 

For  my  part,  while  the  men  of  science  were  explaining 
to  me,  in  that  lucid  curt  language  of  theirs,  which  puts 
our  literary  efflorescence  to  shame,  the  triumphs  of 
reasoned  ingenuity  which  the  General  Electric  Company 


GOLD  AND  WATER-POWER  245 

of  Schenectady,  N.Y.,  had  brought  to  bear  in  order  to 
economise  labour  and  develop  efficiency — while  I  listened 
to  them,  I  was  thinking  what  all  this  may  mean  for 
India  in  the  future.  A  shrine  of  Siva,  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  elemental  force  which  brings  life  and  death, 
was  near  this  place ;  it  may  have  stood  on  this  very 
spot.  East  and  West  are  in  contact  again  :  the  West 
purposefully  bending  Nature  to  the  service  of  man  ;  the 
East  trembling  before  Nature  as  a  cruel  capricious 
Colossus  avid  of  lust  and  blood.  Siva  has  gone,  and 
Schenectady  has  come.  But  the  conflict  is  only 
beginning.  Are  the  old  gods  vanquished  yet  ?  Which 
will  prevail  in  the  end,  Siva  or  Schenectady  ? 

Labour-saving,  at  any  rate,  is  a  new  idea  in  Asia,  and  it 
is  carried  far  at  the  Cauvery  station.  The  whole  apparatus 
is  as  near  as  possible  automatic.  When  I  heard  that 
by  this  scheme  the  power  derived  from  the  river-fall  is 
turned  into  electric  energy,  generated  at  a  force  of  thirty- 
two  thousand  volts,  transformed  to  a  voltage  of  two 
thousand,  and  so  transmitted  to  the  goldfields  of  Kolar 
and  to  the  street  lamps  of  Bangalore,  I  looked  to  see 
a  great  army  of  workmen,  a  whole  corps  of  officials. 
But  nothing  of  the  sort  is  in  evidence.  Mr.  Haskell, 
the  manager,  is  the  only  high  officer  permanently  in 
residence  at  the  Cauvery  station,  assisted  by  occasional 
visits  from  Mr.  Gibbs,  the  chief  executive  engineer. 
The  entire  skilled  staff  consists  of  no  more  than  a  score 
of  Eurasian  operatives  and  fitters,  and  there  are  less  than 
a  hundred  all  told  of  native  labourers,  coolies,  cleaners, 
and  sweepers. 

George  Eliot,  in  The  Impressions  of  Theophrastus 
Such,  imagined  a  cycle  in  which  machinery  should  be 
endowed  with  intelligence  and  volition.  We  seem  almost 
to  have  reached  that  stage,  when  we  enter  this  great 
generating-shed,   and    see    the  cohort  of    turbines  and 


246  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

dynamos,  whirling  obediently  and  uninterruptedly,  with  a 
single  oiler  to  wait  on  them  ;  or  when  we  ascend  to  the 
switch-room  above,  with  its  tiers  of  levers  and  dials  and 
pointers,  and  one  skilled  operative  sitting  at  a  table  with 
pencil  and  note-book,  occupied  in  taking  records,  con- 
cerned mainly  to  see  that  nothing  goes  wrong  with  the 
process  by  which  the  downward  rush  of  the  river  is 
turned  into  magnetic  energy.  The  tubes  and  wheels  and 
wires  do  the  work ;  the  human  assistant  need  only  put 
a  finger  upon  the  pulse  of  the  organism,  to  ascertain  that 
it  is  beating  normally. 

The  Cauvery  station,  with  its  ninety-three  miles  of 
wire  to  Kolar  and  its  fifty-seven  to  the  electric  lights  of 
Bangalore,  is  one  of  the  largest  producers  and  transmitters 
of  power  in  the  world.  At  Niagara,  and  at  three  or  four 
other  places  in  the  United  States,  its  capacity  is  exceeded ; 
but  it  is  ahead  of  anything  that  exists,  and  is  in  actual 
operation  at  this  moment  of  writing,  either  in  Europe  or 
in  Asia.  No  more  striking  example  is  to  be  found  of 
the  scientific  utilisation  of  the  natural  fall  of  great  masses 
of  water  for  the  development  of  electrical  energy. 

And  at  Sivasamudram  the  new  agent,  Vhouille  blanche, 
as  M.  Hanotaux  has  called  it,  is  free  from  the  repellent 
surroundings  that  are  usually  found  where  great  work  is 
being  done  through  the  action  of  coal  and  steam.  With 
water-power  and  electricity  it  is  not  necessary  to  deface  a 
whole  country-side,  to  hide  the  daylight  under  palls  of 
smoke,  to  poison  grass  and  trees  and  rivers,  or  to  pile  up 
hideous  mounds  of  refuse  and  burnt-out  cinders.  Though 
the  engineers  have  diminished  the  volume  of  the  flow  in 
the  dry  season,  the  cascades  still  drift  in  gleaming  folds 
down  the  rocks,  the  wild  flowers  bloom  among  the  clefts, 
and  the  low  brick  buildings,  the  pools  and  reservoirs  and 
canals  made  for  the  power-scheme,  have  done  little  to 
spoil  the  beauty  of  this  fair,  though  unfortunately  fever- 


GOLD  AND   WATER-POWER  247 

haunted,  valley  of  the  Cauvery.    Nature  is  enslaved ;  but 
here,  at  any  rate,  she  is  not  degraded  or  deformed. 

The  day  after  leaving  Sivasamudram  we  picked  up 
the  power-cables  of  the  Cauvery  station  at  their  other 
end,  and  made  our  way  to  the  Kolar  goldfields,  where 
the  energy  developed  from  the  river- falls  is  used  to  work 
stamp-mills  and  mining  machinery.  Here,  too,  one  felt 
the  atmosphere  of  the  Newer  World.  The  mining  settle- 
ment straggles  along  the  line  of  the  great  reefs  for  a 
length  of  some  nine  miles,  in  a  high  breezy  plain,  with 
bare  scarped  hills,  like  South  African  kopjes,  jutting  out 
from  it  in  the  distance.  The  winding-gear  and  head- 
works  of  the  mines  raise  themselves  at  frequent  intervals, 
surrounded  by  stone-built  battery-rooms  and  crushing- 
sheds,  cyanide-tanks,  motor-houses,  and  mounds  of  tail- 
ings ;  with  officers'  bungalows  enclosed  in  flower-gardens, 
brick  tenements  for  the  European  workers,  and  row 
after  row  of  small  straw  tin-roofed  huts  for  the  native 
miners. 

It  is,  as  I  have  said,  one  of  the  noticeable  goldfields  of 
the  world,  representing,  as  it  does,  a  capital  of  £2,192,000, 
a  market  valuation,  when  I  was  there,  of  about  nine 
millions  sterling,  a  total  gold  production  well  over  twenty- 
three  millions,  and  a  contribution,  by  way  of  royalty,  to 
the  revenues  of  the  Mysore  State  of  not  less  than  eleven 
hundred  thousand  pounds.  Thirty  thousand  persons  are 
employed  above  ground  and  below,  and  five  and  a-half 
lakhs  of  rupees  are  paid  out  in  wages  every  month.  There 
are  more  European  residents  here  than  in  almost  any 
place  in  India,  outside  the  military  cantonments  and  the 
Presidency  cities ;  but  of  course  the  great  majority  of  the 
miners  and  labourers  are  natives.  The  lowest  unskilled 
coolie  receives  eightpence  for  a  day's  work  of  eight  hours, 
and  a  cottage,  which  he  occupies  at  a  rent  of  eightpence 


248  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

to  one  and  fourpence  a  month.  These  would  be  deemed 
favourable  terms  anywhere  in  the  Peninsula,  so  that 
native  labour  is  plentiful,  and  there  is  much  competition 
for  employment  on  the  fields. 

The  European  foremen  and  skilled  artisans  and  the 
officials  are  also  very  well  paid:  a  man  who  would  be 
satisfied  with  something  under  thirty  shillings  a  week  at 
home  may  be  making  his  two  hundred  pounds  a  year  or 
more,  with  free  quarters,  lights,  and  medical  attendance, 
and  very  little  occasion  to  spend  largely  on  his  necessities 
and  comforts.  He  comes  as  a  single  man,  without 
*  encumbrances ' ;  if  he  has  a  wife  or  family,  they  stay 
behind  him,  and  he  is  allowed  by  the  companies  five 
months'  leave  of  absence  every  three  years  and  a  free 
return  passage,  in  order  that  he  may  go  home  and  visit 
his  belongings.  A  careful  person,  under  these  conditions, 
can  have  a  very  nice  nest-egg  laid  by  at  the  end  of  a  few 
years  ;  and  some  of  the  Cornish  miners,  who  are  thrifty 
and  saving  to  penuriousness,  do  not  take  long  to  amass 
money  enough  to  return  to  the  old  Western  county  as 
capitalists  in  a  moderate  way. 

What  strikes  one  most  about  this  mining  settlement 
is  its  air  of  quiet,  well-conducted  prosperity.  There  is 
little  outward  evidence  of  the  rowdiness  and  raffishness 
and  the  adventurous  instability,  which  are  characteristic 
of  such  concourses  of  humanity  elsewhere.  The  great 
firm,  which  manages  nearly  all  the  mines,  and  is  the 
virtual  employer  of  almost  the  entire  population, 
encourages  neither  booms  nor  rushes ;  the  outside  pro- 
moter and  prospector  receive  so  scanty  a  welcome  that  in 
the  whole  colony  there  is  not  a  single  hotel  where  they 
can  stay,  and,  unless  they  come  properly  introduced,  they 
will  be  hard  put  to  it  to  find  a  night's  lodging.  On  the 
other  hand,  any  person  who  brings  suitable  credentials 
may  be  sure  of  hearty  and  hospitable  entertainment  in 


GOLD  AND  WATER-POWER  249 

one  or  other  of  the  commodious  bungalows  of  the  chief 
officials. 

The  climate  of  Kolar  is  almost  the  best  in  India, 
outside  the  hill-stations — bright,  airy,  and  equable,  and 
seldom  hot  enough  to  make  the  punkah  necessary. 
These  conditions,  and  perhaps  most  of  all  the  absence 
of  any  floating  population,  since  almost  everybody  on 
the  fields  is  engaged  under  contract  and  has  some  definite 
status,  render  the  level  of  health  high  and  that  of 
crime  low.  I  noticed  no  saloons,  or  bars,  or  gambling- 
rooms,  or  drinking-shops ;  but  there  is  a  first-rate  hos- 
pital, there  are  good  schools  for  the  Eurasian  children, 
there  are  churches  and  chapels,  social  institutes,  cricket 
and  tennis  grounds,  racquet-courts,  and  an  excellent  club. 
The  Goldfields  Eifles  count  among  the  smartest  volun- 
teer forces  in  India.  For  general  comfort  and  well-being, 
and  for  the  absence  of  disorder  and  violence  of  any  kind, 
I  am  assured  by  those  who  know  California  and  South 
Africa  and  Australia  and  British  Columbia,  that  the 
Kolar  settlement  has  no  superior,  and  probably  no 
equal. 

We  were  shown  the  shafts  and  surface-workings  of 
the  great  mines,  the  Champion  Eeef  and  the  Mysore, 
whose  names  they  know  so  well  in  Throgmorton  Street 
and  the  Place  de  la  Bourse.  We  peered  down  the  new 
shafts,  two  thousand  five  hundred  feet  deep  in  one  case, 
four  thousand,  when  completed,  in  another,  which  are 
to  tap  the  veins  at  their  lower  levels,  and  prolong  the 
life  of  mines  that  are  already  among  the  steadiest  and 
most  constant  producers  within  the  investor's  ken. 

We  went  into  the  reduction-sheds,  and  watched  the 
ever-fascinating  process  by  which  the  shapeless,  useless- 
looking,  chunks  of  grey  stone  are  made  to  yield  the 
precious  metal  at  their  hearts.  We  see  the  load  of  rough 
quartz  trucked  from  the  mouth  of  the  shaft  and  lifted  up 


250  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

to  a  high  revolving  table,  on  which  natives,  treading  bare- 
footed among  the  flinty  cores,  sift  out  the  gold-bearing 
lumps  from  the  heap,  and  pitch  them  into  a  shoot,  where 
great  iron  teeth  bite  them  into  manageable  morsels. 

We  pass  into  the  battery-rooms,  where  the  ponderous 
stamps,  dancing  up  and  down  like  giant  piano-keys,  grind 
the  fragments  of  ore  into  powder  under  their  manganese- 
steel  heads  ;  and  we  behold  this  powder,  watered  into  a 
viscous  fluid,  flowing  over  the  copper  plates  past  the 
cunning  barrier  of  mercury,  which  takes  up  the  gold  held 
in  solution.  We  witness  the  process  of  roasting  and 
retorting  the  amalgam,  till  all  the  mercury  is  driven  off 
as  vapour,  and  only  the  precious  yellow  stuff  is  left  in  the 
crucible.  Then  we  inspect  the  cyanide-tanks,  with  their 
pools  of  deadly  liquid,  and  the  tub  holding  a  hundred- 
weight of  an  innocent-looking  white  precipitate,  one 
feathery  ball  of  which  would  suffice  to  poison  a  regiment. 
Finally  we  enter  the  trim  little  office,  where  the  manager 
opens  the  three-inch-armour-plate  door  of  the  strong-room 
and  reveals  the  gold  bricks  glistening  in  a  tempting  row, 
ready  to  be  packed  and  sealed  and  labelled  and  sent  down 
under  an  armed  escort  to  the  railway. 

It  is  all  very  modern,  business-like,  un-Indian.  The 
sturdy  Cornish  miners,  the  keen-eyed  Welsh  and  Scotch 
foremen  and  fitters,  make  us  forget  the  coolies  and 
sweeper- women  raking  away  at  the  sand-heaps  and  tail- 
ings. The  cheery  fresh-faced  mine-managers  and  engi- 
neers, loud  in  speech,  jovial,  careless,  informal  in  dress 
and  demeanour — they  seem  to  have  little  in  common  with 
the  precise  civilians  and  the  sporting  young  exquisites  of 
the  parade-ground.  We  hear  the  deep  Lancastrian  bass, 
the  rolling  burr  of  Northumbria,  the  level  monotone  of 
the  American  West. 

We  pass  from  the  mine-works,  in  company  with 
these  good-humoured  and  well-informed  men  of  business, 


GOLD  AND  WATER-POWER  251 

to  their  club,  and  from  the  club  to  the  hospital,  a  model 
of  all  that  is  up-to-date  and  scientific,  where  the  alert 
young  doctors  exhibit  the  latest  triumphs  of  curative 
electric  apparatus  and  X-ray  improvements.  We  look 
from  the  spotless  wards  out  upon  the  neat  garden,  with 
its  English  flowers,  and  beyond  that  to  a  tall  brick 
chimney,  a  row  of  sheds,  and  the  straddling  iron  legs 
of  a  windlass  hoist :  and  we  forget  that  we  are  in  India. 

But  what  are  those  strange  piercing  cries,  unearthly, 
blood-curdling,  that  fly  through  the  open  windows? 
What  is  this  Maenad  figure  which  meets  our  gaze  as  we 
emerge  hastily  upon  the  terrace  ?  A  woman,  with  long 
black  hair  floating  loose  in  the  wind,  comes  staggering 
past  the  low  iron  fence  of  the  compound.  Her  red  robe 
streams  behind  her,  leaving  breasts  and  shoulders  bare ; 
her  arms  are  wildly  extended,  and  in  one  uplifted  hand 
she  brandishes  a  kind  of  trident ;  the  head  is  thrown  back, 
the  dark  eyes  blaze  with  frenzied  light,  the  features  are 
hideously  distorted;  demoniac  shrieks  tear  her  as  she 
runs.  So  might  some  priestess  of  Cybele  have  looked 
when  the  fury  of  the  goddess  was  upon  her. 

And  that,  indeed,  is  the  case  of  this  coolie  woman. 
*  Drunk?'  says  one  of  the  European  spectators.  The 
hospital  surgeon  shakes  his  head.  He  points  to  a  small 
three-sided  enclosure  of  rough  stones  in  a  patch  of  waste 
land  hard  by.  Within  is  a  big  boulder  forming  a  kind  of 
altar,  and  upon  it  a  rude  wooden  image.  It  is  a  temple 
of  Durga  Kali,  the  Hecate  of  the  Hindu  Pantheon.  The 
altar-stone  was  just  a  lump  of  the  quartzite  rock  scattered 
over  the  brae.  But  there  was  something  a  little  unusual 
in  its  shape  and  size,  and  so  the  people  took  to  wor- 
shipping the  spirit  that  dwelt  within  it.  Then  somebody 
walled  it  in,  and  they  put  the  misformed  red-daubed  idol 
upon  it,  and  now,  adds  our  informant,  it  is  a  temple,  ■  and 
we  must  not  touch  it.' 


252  A    VISION   OF  INDIA 

The  woman  has  been  worshipping  at  the  shrine  of  the 
Goddess  of  Terror  until  the  mania  has  entered  her  brain. 
She  is  possessed  of  the  devil,  as  our  forefathers  would 
have  said ;  the  gadfly  is  stinging  at  her  heart,  the  oestrus 
of  Durga,  the  Slayer,  the  Blood-drinker,  she  who  is  the 
wife  of  the  Destroyer,  drives  her  onward.  Her  husband 
and  a  group  of  neighbours  follow,  at  a  respectful  distance, 
half -alarmed,  half-admiring.  She  approaches  the  steps  of 
the  hospital,  and  it  is  time  to  intervene,  lest  she  break  in 
and  disturb  the  patients.  The  doctors  and  a  policeman — 
modern  science  and  the  instruments  of  the  law — bar  her 
progress,  and  exhort  her  friends  to  get  her  away ;  but 
these  latter  are  obviously  reluctant  to  meddle  with  the 
manifestation  of  the  deity.  The  trident  is  taken  from  the 
woman,  and  with  difficulty  she  is  turned  back  and  headed 
off  to  safer  ground.  An  hour  afterwards,  when  we  pass  by 
the  low  wall  of  the  crude  temple,  we  see  her  crouching  upon 
the  altar-steps,  her  snaky  locks  falling  over  her  bowed 
head,  a  knot  of  the  villagers  still  standing  near  in  awed 
silence  to  watch  her  shivering  shoulders  and  listen  to  her 
convulsive  sobs.  Close  by  the  laden  trucks  are  rolling  to 
the  mills,  and  the  wire-ropes  are  rattling  over  the  drums 
of  the  winding-engines.  Here,  as  in  Sivasamudram,  we 
are  faced  by  the  perpetual  contrast,  the  inevitable  ques- 
tion. Which  will  survive  in  the  end — the  old  gods  of 
Asia  or  the  new  spirit  of  the  West  ?  Is  it  to  be  Siva  or 
Schenectady,  Kali  or  the  General  Electric  Construction 
and  Maintenance  Company,  Limited?  Perhaps  it  will 
be  neither — perhaps  both. 


IN  THE   SOUTHLAND: 

WAITING    FOR    THE    ROYAL    PROCESSION    AT    MYSORE. 


253 


CHAPTEE  XVIII 
HINDUISM  AND  THE  CASTES 

'Christ  is  our  salvation;  Caste  is  our  curse.'  The 
sentence  was  painted  in  black  letters  on  the  whitewashed 
wall  of  the  little  mission  building.  It  represents  the 
honest  opinion  of  many  earnest  teachers  who  are  trying 
to  turn  the  people  of  India  to  the  Christian  faith.  Some 
Hindu  reformers  take  the  same  view.  Whenever  there  is 
what  may  be  called  a  Protestant  movement  in  Hinduism, 
an  attempt  to  bring  back  the  old  Vedantic  system,  and  to 
purge  away  the  priestly  excrescences,  there  is  a  certain 
revolt  against  caste.  The  new  theistic  Hindu  sects,  such 
as  the  Brahmo  Somaj  and  the  Arya  Somaj,  preach  the 
equality  of  all  men  in  the  spiritual  world.  The  Sikhs, 
who  started  as  Hindu  Puritans,  with  Brahmanism  as 
their  Scarlet  Woman,  are  not  supposed  to  recognise  caste 
distinctions. 

But  the  insurrections  have  usually  died  away;  the 
Nonconformists  themselves  end  by  a  return  to  orthodoxy 
and  a  reconciliation  with  the  caste  arrangement.  The 
Sikhs  have  in  reality,  though  not  ostensibly,  fallen  into 
castes ;  so,  to  a  large  extent,  have  the  Mohammedans ;  so 
have  even  many  of  the  native  Christians  in  the  South  of 
India,  where  alone  they  count  as  a  substantial  element  in 
the  population.  Simon  Sebastian,  clerk  and  writer,  is  a 
good  Catholic ;  he  attends  Mass,  he  listens  to  prayers 
read  in  the  Latin  tongue,  he  confesses  his  sins  to  Father 
Dominic  or  Father  Ambrosius.     But  he  will  not  marry 


254  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

his  daughter  to  a  man  who  works  in  leather,  nor,  if  he 
can  help  it,  eat  with  him.  For  twenty  centuries  or  more 
the  people  of  India  have  lived  under  the  rule  of  caste ; 
the  vast  majority  of  them  live  under  it  to-day,  and  will  so 
live  for  longer  than  we  can  see. 

It  is  an  affair  of  immense  complications,  intricate  and 
confused.  The  origin  is  probably  ethnological.  Such 
appears  to  be  the  conclusion  of  the  closest  modern  ob- 
servers, including  Mr.  H.  H.  Eisley,  whose  essay,  in  the 
introductory  volume  of  the  Indian  Census  Eeport  for 
1901,  contains  more  information  on  the  whole  subject 
than  is  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  a  convenient  form.  The 
highest  castes  of  all,  the  Brahmans,  who  are  the  priests, 
and  the  Eajputs,  who  were  the  knights,  are  descended 
from  the  Northern  conquerors,  the  '  Aryans/  who  came 
down  from  beyond  the  mountains.  The  secondary  classes 
are  a  mixed  race,  made  up  from  these  fairer  taller  people 
of  the  North,  and  the  Dravidians,  or  Mongoloids,  who 
still  constitute  the  mass  of  the  population  in  Bengal, 
the  Central  Provinces,  and  the  South. 

Climate  and  environment  worked  physical  changes  in 
the  course  of  centuries,  and  no  doubt  there  has  been 
much  mixing  of  the  blood,  even  in  the  aristocratic  septs. 
Still,  many  of  the  high-caste  Hindus  bear  obviously  the 
stamp  of  race.  The  Brahman,  with  his  light-brown  skin, 
his  lithe  delicate  build,  and  his  well-cut  features,  is  clearly 
marked  off  from  the  swarthy  peasants  of  the  Lower 
Ganges,  the  stubby  semi-negroid  Telugus  and  Tamils  of 
Madras.  The  contrast  is  most  noticeable  in  the  South, 
where  the  priestly  order  has  always  kept  itself  apart  and 
retains  many  of  its  ancient  privileges.  Some  of  the  high- 
caste  Southern  women,  the  celebrated  'cream-coloured' 
Iyengas,  are  warmly  praised  by  exigent  connoisseurs  in 
female  beauty;  and  I  have  seldom  seen  faces  of  more 
intellectual  distinction  than  those  of  the  leading  native 


HINDUISM  AND  THE  CASTES        255 

barristers  and  pleaders  of  Madras,  who  are  nearly  all 
Brahmans. 

The  Hindus  are  not  the  only  people  among  whom 
elaborate  devices  have  been  attempted  for  preserving 
intact  the  supposed  purity  of  certain  superior  stocks. 
Most  conquering  aristocracies  have  tried  it,  and  most  have 
failed.  But  in  India  the  classification  is  guarded  by  the 
strictest  observance  of  the  principle  of  heredity,  and  it  is 
not  confined  to  a  comparatively  small  number  of  selected 
families.  It  has  been  extended  till  it  includes  most  of 
the  population,  so  that  every  Hindu,  above  the  lowest 
stratum  of  all,  is  a  member  of  some  caste.  Society 
in  India  is  made  up  in  air-tight  compartments,  every 
group  being  rigidly  marked  off  from  the  rest,  and  it  is 
extremely  difficult  for  a  person  to  pass  from  one  to 
another,  or  even  to  establish  very  intimate  relations  with 
those  outside  his  own  circle. 

The  common  tie  may  be  that  of  race,  of  social  status, 
or  of  occupation.  To  get  a  loose  analogy,  we  might 
suppose  that  everybody  who  could  claim  descent  from 
one  of  the  old  Norman  families  in  England  formed  one 
caste;  that  members  of  the  ' learned  professions,'  who 
had  never  soiled  themselves  with  commerce,  were  com- 
bined in  a  second ;  and  that  others  consisted  exclusively 
of  bankers  or  moneylenders,  or  of  pork-butchers,  coster- 
mongers,  bricklayers,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

Add  that  a  man  born  in  the  costermonger  class  would 
remain,  or  ought  to  remain,  a  member  of  that  connection 
to  the  end  of  his  days,  and  that  he  would  usually  bring  up 
his  sons  to  the  same  business  ;  that  a  greengrocer  ought 
not  to  eat  food  in  company  with  a  poulterer,  that  a  baker 
might  not  give  his  daughter  in  marriage  to  a  cheese- 
monger, and  that  neither  could  have  any  matrimonial 
relations  with  a  bootmaker;  and,  further,  that  none  of 
these  persons  should  place  himself  in  personal  contact 


256  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

with  a  clergyman  or  a  solicitor — imagine  all  this,  and  you 
begin  to  acquire  some  faint  notion  of  the  involved  tangle 
in  which  the  entire  Hindu  community  has  managed  to 
get  itself  enwound. 

At  the  back  of  it  all  lies  the  religious  sanction  ;  and  in 
India  religion,  with  what  seems  a  malign  ingenuity,  has 
occupied  itself  in  heaping  complications  round  the  two 
essential  functions  of  eating  and  marrying.  The  Hindu 
cannot  take  his  food  without  elaborate  precautions  against 
pollution;  and  the  higher  his  caste  the  more  burden- 
some are  these  rules.  Even  the  coolie  woman  in  the 
street,  carrying  home  her  bowl  of  cooked  porridge,  will 
take  care  to  keep  well  clear  of  any  passing  sahib ;  for  if 
the  Viceroy  or  the  Lieutenant-Governor  should  happen 
to  touch  the  brass  vessel  with  so  much  as  the  flap  of  his 
overcoat  the  contents  would  have  to  be  thrown  away. 

As  for  the  higher  sort  of  Brahman,  nothing  is  easier 
than  to  sully  his  purity.  There  are  some  inferior  castes 
in  the  South,  who  are  not  supposed  to  approach  even 
within  speaking  distance  of  the  elect.  A  regular  table 
has  been  drawn  up  of  what  may  be  called  the  degrees  of 
pollution ;  so  that,  while  some  of  these  low  persons  can 
pollute  a  man  of  a  superior  caste  only  by  actually  touching 
him,  it  is  held  that  blacksmiths,  masons,  carpenters,  and 
leather-workers  can  pollute  at  a  distance  of  twenty- 
four  feet,  toddy-drawers  at  thirty-six  feet,  and  cultivators 
at  forty-eight  feet,  while  the  pariahs,  who  eat  beef, 
have  a  pollution-range  of  no  less  than  twenty-one  yards 
twelve  inches. 

The  more  sacred  a  Hindu  is  the  more  he  is  worried  by 
his  code  of  table  etiquette.  The  very  high-caste  Brahman 
ought  to  strip  of  all  his  clothes,  and,  if  possible,  sit  on  a 
floor  of  cow-dung  when  he  consumes  his  food.  He 
should  not  eat  anything  which  has  been  touched  by  an 
inferior,  or  a  non-Hindu,  nor  drink   water  out  of  any 


HINDUISM  AND  THE   CASTES  257 

vessel  similarly  defiled.  As  the  scale  descends  the  re- 
strictions relax,  until  we  get  down  to  the  lowest  kind  of 
menial  or  labourer,  who  can  attend  to  dogs,  if  required, 
and  do  many  other  things  forbidden  to  his  superiors,  and 
allow  his  womankind  to  dispense  with  the  dignity  and  the 
restraint  of  the  purdah.  Finally  we  reach  the  outcast, 
who,  having  no  social  position  to  lose,  eats  any  kind  of 
meat  whenever  he  can  get  it,  and  will  even  drink  out  of 
an  earthenware  cup  which  has  touched  other  lips. 

Luckily  for  the  modern  Hindu  these  burdensome 
prohibitions  and  injunctions  are  subject  to  certain  con- 
venient legal  fictions.  Sweetmeats,  it  appears,  are  not 
food,  and  may  be  taken  by  anybody  anywhere.  Not  long 
ago  the  Brahman  pundits  at  Benares  decided  that  soda- 
water  is  not  water,  within  the  meaning  of  the  Act  so  to 
speak,  and  that  ice  does  not  count.  The  priests  made  a 
virtue  of  necessity.  They  found  that  iced  soda-water  was 
too  popular  in  an  Indian  summer  to  be  kept  on  the  Index. 
The  most  orthodox  Eajput  gentleman,  when  exhausted 
by  a  hard  game  of  polo,  will  not  hesitate  to  drink  the 
sparkling  fluid,  even  though  it  is  possible  that  some  un- 
believing hand  may  have  touched  the  bottle  from  which 
it  bubbles  or  the  frozen  block  with  which  it  is  cooled. 

The  complexity  of  the  Hindu  socio-religious  system 
looms  even  more  formidably  when  we  enter  the  domain 
of  marriage.  A  Brahmanist  Table  of  Prohibited  Degrees 
would  be  an  appalling  document.  It  would  include 
almost  everybody,  except  some  of  the  prospective  bride- 
groom's own  cousins  several  times  removed.  What  the 
caste  system  means  in  the  matrimonial  sphere  is  strikingly 
illustrated  by  a  vivid  apologue  with  which  Mr.  Eisley 
lightens  the  pages  of  the  Census  Keporfc. 

He  imagines  the  great  tribe  of  the  Smiths,  throughout 
Great  Britain,  bound  together  in  a  community,  and  re- 
cognising as  their  cardinal  doctrine  that  a  Smith  must 

s 


258  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

always  marry  another  Smith,  and  could  by  no  possibility 
marry  a  Brown,  a  Jones,  or  a  Eobinson.  This  seems 
fairly  simple  :  there  would  be  quite  enough  Miss  Smiths  to 
go  round.  But,  then,  note  that  the  Smith  horde  would  be 
broken  up  into  smaller  clans,  each  fiercely  endogamous. 
Brewing  Smiths,  Mr.  Bisley  asks  us  to  observe,  must  not 
mate  with  baking  Smiths  ;  shooting  Smiths  and  hunting 
Smiths,  temperance  Smiths  and  licensed-victualler  Smiths, 
Free  Trade  Smiths  and  Tariff  Keform  Smiths,  must  seek 
partners  for  life  in  their  own  particular  section  of  the 
Smithian  multitude.  The  Unionist  Smith  would  not 
lead  a  Home  Bule  damsel  to  the  altar,  nor  should  Smith 
the  tailor  wed  the  daughter  of  a  Smith  who  sold  boots. 

An  additional  complication  would  be  introduced  by 
the  fact  that  certain  very  lofty  Smiths  might  marry  the 
daughters  of  the  groups  next  below  them,  but  were 
strictly  forbidden  to  unite  their  own  girls  to  the  male 
scions  of  these  slightly  inferior  families.  It  is  as  if  the 
Brompton  Smiths  might  give  a  daughter  to  the  Smiths 
of  Shropshire,  but  could  by  no  means  be  permitted  to 
pass  on  a  son  to  that  respectable  county  connection. 

Under  such  conditions  the  difficulties  of  the  Hindu 
parent  with  a  marriageable  daughter  on  his  hands  must 
often  be  great :  especially  when  the  whole  family  will  be 
disgraced  if  the  young  lady  is  not  wedded  when  she 
reaches  the  age  of  thirteen  or  fourteen  at  the  outside. 
Custom  rigorously  enjoins  that  she  must  marry  some- 
body; yet  the  circle  in  which  she  can  find  a  suitable 
husband  is  strictly  circumscribed.  Likely  bridegrooms 
are  scarce,  and  among  the  classes  with  social  pretensions 
it  may  be  impossible  to  get  them  at  all  without  a  con- 
siderable outlay  in  cash. 

The  unfortunate  father  is  often  compelled  to  put  down 
a  lump  sum  to  obtain  a  youth  of  the  correct  caste  as  a 
bridegroom  for  his  daughter,  or  he  runs  the  risk  of  seeing 


HINDUISM   AND   THE   CASTES  259 

her  remain  single  until  she  is  long  past  the  age  at  which 
a  Hindu  woman  is  supposed  to  become  a  wife.  The  tariff 
is  fixed  according  to  the  social  standing  and  personal 
qualifications  of  the  bridegroom.  Besides  paying  a  large 
dowry,  the  bride's  father  is  expected  to  hold  a  marriage- 
feast  on  such  a  lavish  scale  that  the  expenses  may  cripple 
him  for  years.  Small  wonder  that  the  birth  of  a  daughter 
is  not  a  cause  of  rejoicing  in  Hindu  households,  and  that 
the  poor  little  thing  receives  a  frosty  welcome  in  this 
hard  world. 

In  the  old  days  the  provident  parent,  foreseeing  these 
social  and  financial  difficulties,  frequently  got  rid  of  them, 
together  with  his  baby  daughter,  at  the  outset.  Female 
infanticide  was  regularly  practised,  not  amongst  the  de- 
graded races,  but  among  some  of  the  most  respected  and 
reputable  peoples  in  India,  such  as  the  Jats,  the  Kajputs, 
the  Sikhs.  We  call  it  murder,  and  do  our  best  to  stop  it ; 
but  the  disproportion  of  female  to  male  children,  revealed 
in  the  Census  returns,  shows  that  the  practice  has  not 
yet  been  completely  stamped  out.  The  isolated  crime  is 
hard  to  detect ;  but  when  the  ratio  of  girls  to  boys  falls 
particularly  low  in  any  village,  the  Government  makes 
things  unpleasant  for  everybody  by  quartering  extra 
police  on  the  place,  and  causing  all  the  inhabitants  to 
contribute  towards  the  cost ;  which  naturally  annoys  a 
thrifty  population. 

Still,  public  opinion  is  hardly  as  yet  on  the  side  of 
the  law.  An  old  jemadar  in  one  of  our  native  regiments 
discussing  the  subject  with  his  company  commander,  said 
that  he  could  not  understand  why  the  Sirkar  interfered 
with  what  he  evidently  regarded  as  a  beneficial  custom. 
If  it  were  a  question  of  boys  he  could  understand  it ;  for 
boys  are  useful,  and  may  in  time  grow  into  sepoys  and 
sowars.  But  why  all  this  fuss  about  girls,  who  are  of  no 
value,  and  only  a  source  of  expense  ? 

82 


260  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

Under  the  spell  of  '  the  monster  custom  '  the  Hindus 
can  be  amazingly  callous  and  brutal,  especially  where 
women  and  female  children  are  concerned.  In  the  older 
days,  when  infant  murders  were  numerous,  if  it  were  in- 
convenient or  dangerous  to  dispose  of  the  wretched  little 
corpse  by  cremation,  it  might  be  buried  in  the  compound, 
with  a  jibing  verse  over  the  grave,  such  as  this : 

Your  life,  my  dear,  we  must  destroy, 

Since  you're  a  girl  and  not  a  boy. 

And  the  mothers  ?  Did  not  the  mothers  object  ?  My 
friend,  the  company  officer,  asked  the  question.  *  If  it 
was  the  first  one,'  replied  the  native  corporal  calmly, 
*  they  used  to  give  a  lot  of  trouble.  But  after  a  time  they 
got  used  to  it.' 

Worse  than  the  infanticides — much  worse — are  the 
child-marriages,  with  all  their  evils,  of  which  the  greatest 
is  girl-widowhood.  Hard  and  sorrowful,  as  everybody 
knows,  is  often  the  lot  of  the  Hindu  widow.  We  have 
abolished  suttee,1  but  one  sometimes  wonders  whether 
that  is  really  a  reform,  since  multitudes  of  women  have 
exchanged  the  swift  and  passing  agony  of  the  funeral 
pyre  for  years  of  oppression,  neglect,  and  misery.  Many 
thousands  of  widows  have  to  choose  between  a  life  of 
degradation  and  shame  if  they  leave  their  husband's 
relatives,  and  barbarous  ill-usage  if  they  remain  with 
them.  According  to  the  Census  of  1901,  there  were  close 
on  twenty  million  Hindu  widows,  of  whom  321,470  were 
under  fifteen  years  of  age.  And  though  perfunctory  reso- 
lutions are  sometimes  passed  at  the  National  Congress  in 
favour  of  raising  the  age  of  marriage — to  twelve! — no 
serious  attempt  is  made  to  wean  the  people  from  the 
practice  of  child-wedlock,  and  there  is  more  of  it  in 
Bengal  than  in  any  of  the  other  provinces. 

1  Or  tried  to  do  so.  But  cases  of  public  self-immolation  by  widows  still 
occasionally  occur  in  the  villages  and  are  sometimes  brought  before  the 
courts. 


HINDUISM   AND   THE   CASTES  261 

All  the  Congress  orators  combined  have  not  done  so 
much  as  a  single  unobtrusive  Political  Officer,  Colonel 
Walter,  a  former  Agent  for  Eajputana,  who  in  1888 
induced  the  leading  Eajput  families  to  agree  to  a  re- 
vised code  of  marriage  rules.  Under  this  scheme,  four- 
teen was  laid  down  as  the  minimum  age  of  marriage  for 
girls,  the  expenses  of  betrothal  fetes  and  wedding-feasts 
were  regulated  according  to  a  fixed  and  moderate  scale, 
and  second  marriages,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  first 
wife,  were  prohibited.  The  code  has  been  called  the 
greatest  social  reform  which  has  been  made  effective  in 
India  for  about  two  thousand  years.  When  we  consider 
what  this  single  English  gentleman  accomplished  by 
moral  suasion  alone,  we  may  be  tempted  to  ask  whether 
our  Government  does  not  sometimes  deal  too  tenderly 
with  caste  abuses ;  and  whether  that  which  Colonel 
Walter  did  for  Eajputana  the  law  might  not  contrive  to 
accomplish  for  the  whole  of  British  and  native  India. 

As  to  the  tyranny  of  caste  rules  in  other  matters,  many 
curious  examples  were  given  me,  drawn  from  the  opposite 
extremes  of  native  society.  One  relates  to  a  young  Indian 
nobleman,  wealthy,  educated,  and  almost  European  in 
his  ways.  He  talks  and  reads  English  perfectly,  wears 
English  clothes,  plays  English  games,  has  many  English 
friends,  and  would  seem  to  have  left  most  of  his  Oriental 
habits  and  predilections  behind  him.  But  this  gentleman 
is  the  hereditary  head  of  a  caste  of  thieves ;  and  it  is  ex- 
pected of  him  that  once  a  year  at  least,  if  not  of  tener,  he 
should  steal  something.  So  now  and  again  his  [English] 
secretary  leaves  a  few  rupees  carelessly  lying  on  his  desk, 
and  the  raja  pockets  them,  thereby  discharging  himself 
of  the  obligation  laid  upon  him  at  his  birth.  The  story 
may  be  ben  trovato  rather  than  true  ;  but  the  fact  that  it 
is  repeated  and  believed  illustrates  the  tendency  of  Indian 
opinion,  which  still  feels  that  if  a  man  is  born  a  thief  he 


262  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

must  go  on  robbing  to  the  end  of  his  course  on  earth. 
The  gods  have  written  it  on  his  forehead,  as  the  common 
saying  runs  :  there  is  no  help  for  it.  Our  laws  are  doing 
something  to  modify  this  theory,  by  making  the  position 
of  the  criminal  tribes  as  precarious  and  uncomfortable  as 
possible.  In  the  meanwhile,  there  are  still  a  good  many 
of  them,  scattered  up  and  down  the  country,  or  even 
living  quite  quietly  in  their  own  villages,  from  which  they 
emerge  to  prey  upon  the  rest  of  the  community.  The 
police  know  all  about  them ;  but  a  person  bred  to  larceny 
and  pilfering  from  the  cradle  is  not  easily  caught  in  the  act. 

Hereditary  occupations  are  not  limited  to  one  sex,  as 
the  following  authentic  history  demonstrates.  A  lady, 
who  had  a  Mission  School  for  native  Christians,  was 
visited  by  the  mother  of  one  of  her  pupils,  a  bright  and 
promising  girl.  The  woman  asked  that  music  and  certain 
other  accomplishments  might  be  imparted  to  her  daugh- 
ter, as  these  would  prove  useful  in  her  future  career. 
Asked  what  this  was  to  be,  she  explained  that  the  maiden 
was  destined  to  pursue  that  branch  of  industry  which  has 
been  euphemistically  described  as  *  the  oldest  profession  in 
the  world.'  The  Mission  teacher  was  naturally  horrified. 
*  How  can  you  let  your  child  give  herself  to  such  wicked- 
ness ?  '  she  said.  'You  are  a  Christian.'  The  native 
woman  was  not  shaken.  No  doubt  she  was  a  Ki-listian  ; 
but  she  belonged  to  that  ancient  calling,  like  her  mother 
before  her,  and  so  her  daughter  ought  to  follow  it  also. 
The  girl  had  indeed  been  married  in  infancy  to  a  peepul- 
tree  with  this  express  object.  It  was  her  caste  ;  she  had 
no  other  place  in  life. 

But  the  crudities  and  cruelties  of  the  caste  system  need 
not  blind  us  to  its  other  aspects.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
it  is  the  main  cause  of  the  fundamental  stability  and 
contentment  by  which  Indian  society  has  been  braced  for 
centuries  against  the  shocks  of  politics  and  the  cataclysms 


HINDUISM  AND  THE  CASTES  263 

of  Nature.  It  provides  every  man  with  his  place,  his 
career,  his  occupation,  his  circle  of  friends.  It  makes 
him,  at  the  outset,  a  member  of  a  corporate  body  ;  it  pro- 
tects him  through  life  from  the  canker  of  social  jealousy 
and  unfulfilled  aspirations  ;  it  ensures  him  companionship 
and  a  sense  of  community  with  others  in  like  case  with 
himself.  The  caste  organisation  is  to  the  Hindu  his 
club,  his  trade  union,  his  benefit  society,  his  philanthropic 
society.  There  are  no  workhouses  in  India,  and  none 
are — as  yet — needed.  The  obligation  to  provide  for  kins- 
folk and  friends  in  distress  is  universally  acknowledged ; 
nor  can  it  be  questioned  that  this  is  due  to  that  recog- 
nition of  the  strength  of  family  ties,  and  of  the  bonds 
created  by  association  and  common  pursuits,  which  is 
fostered  by  the  caste  principle.  An  India  without  caste, 
as  things  stand  at  present,  it  is  not  quite  easy  to 
imagine. 

BENAEES 

Those  who  seek  to  get  a  little  closer  to  the  religion 
that  lies  behind  the  Hindu  social  system  must  go  to 
Benares,  which  is  in  some  ways  the  most  notable  of  the 
cities  of  India  :  not  because  of  her  wealth,  her  magnificence, 
or  her  beauty,  for  the  Presidency  capitals  are  richer,  by 
far,  and  greater,  nor  has  she  any  such  noble  monuments  of 
art  or  such  memorials  of  the  past  as  those  which  lend 
undying  interest  to  Agra  and  Delhi.  But  Benares  is 
the  metropolis  of  Hinduism,  the  Kome  of  the  strange 
amalgam  of  creeds  and  customs  that  rules  the  lives  of  so 
many  dusky  millions,  the  mysterious  Queen  of  the  Brah- 
manic  world;  and,  like  a  queen,  Benares  sits  by  the 
Ganges,  albeit  a  queen  with  purple  robes  somewhat 
patched  and  tattered  and  a  throne  of  ivory  and  clay. 

The  stream  of  the  sacred  river  sweeps  past  in  a  wide 
crescent  of  pale  yellow  water,  and  Kashi,  '  the  Splendid,' 


264  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

as  the  Hindus  call  the  city,  looks  down  upon  the  flood  in  a 
huddle  of  palaces  and  towers,  of  walls  and  window-spaces, 
of  cones  and  cupolas  and  fretted  temple  pyramids,  with 
the  tall  minarets  of  a  mosque  lifting  themselves  sternly 
towards  the  impassive  sky,  as  though  calling  upon  Allah, 
the  One  and  Indivisible,  in  indignant  protest  against  the 
idolatrous  tangle  below. 

Beauty  and  squalor,  pretentiousness  and  insignificance, 
meet  you  as  you  are  rowed  past  the  broken  line  of 
wharves  and  ghats.  Now  a  noble  facade,  now  a  tumbled 
heap  of  ruin  or  a  patch  of  bare  sandbank  and  gravel-pit ; 
now  the  deep  red  gopuram  of  a  Hindu  temple,  or  a  white 
Jain  steeple,  with  vanes  and  bells  of  gold;  now  the 
mighty  piers  and  massive  stone  blocks  of  an  unfinished 
palace,  which  has  slipped  on  its  foundations  of  river-mud, 
and  lies  threateningly  on  the  brink.  From  the  irregular 
masses  of  buildings,  terraced  on  the  high  bank,  great 
flights  of  steps  lead  to  the  water's  edge;  broad  steps, 
which  for  many  hours  of  the  day  and  most  days  of  the 
year  are  all  alive  with  pilgrims,  bathing  and  washing,  with 
worshippers  throwing  their  chaplets  of  marigold  upon 
Mother  Gunga's  bosom,  with  priests  and  ascetics  sitting 
in  prayer  under  great  straw  sunshades ;  steps  which  the 
red-robed  women  climb  at  evening,  with  their  pots  of 
gleaming  brass  and  dripping  earthen  bowls ;  steps  down 
which  they  bring  the  dead  for  burning,  and  the  dying 
that  they  may  pass  away  with  their  feet  wet  from  the 
lapping  of  the  Kiver  of  Life. 

Apart  from  its  sumptuous  water-front,  there  is  little 
dignity  and  charm  in  Benares.  The  temples,  even  the 
Golden  Temple  itself,  are  mean  things,  with  no  claim  to 
architectural  merit.  The  old  town  is  a  nest  of  narrow 
lanes,  where  the  pilgrims,  on  their  way  to  the  shrines 
and  the  bathing  ghats,  can  look  into  the  tiny  booths  from 
which  is  heard  the  clink  of  the  brassworker's  hammer  and 


^jj**-    1  >1f-~t  '« 

^-'jfiTsj 

^B  ,V-- 

-v   5r*yML              '      ZJL. 

■LJihE  > .  ?• 

&£**c3r 

■■}&■* 

■>  "  ^»  ' 

■                    ^*11W^ 

iZ^t          P^- 

f.mJ^r\ 

ttct        c  c 

•  »C   C  •  c  i 


C  fc 

c  « 

c  ,  ,  c 


HINDUISM   AND  THE   CASTES  265 

chisel,  as  he  works  at  his  images  of  Mahadeo  and  Parvati 
and  Ganesh. 

The  Mohammedans  trampled  heavily  on  Kashi,  and 
most  of  its  older  shrines  disappeared.  If  you  want  to  see 
the  true  memorials  of  Hindu  art,  in  its  stronger  days, 
you  must  go  elsewhere,  to  Madura  or  Tan j ore  or  Con- 
jevaram,  or  to  the  temple  caves  of  Ellora,  enriched  with 
sculptured  figures  almost  Hellenic  in  their  austere 
simplicity.  Benares,  like  Kome,  has  passed  under  the 
hoof  of  the  spoiler. 

But  Aurangzeb,  the  iconoclast,  broke  the  idols  of  the 
sacred  city  in  vain.  When  the  Prince  of  Wales  rode 
through  the  flower-festooned  streets  of  Benares  at  the 
head  of  a  great  elephant  procession,  a  company  of 
ascetics,  ragged  and  unkempt,  greeted  him  at  one  point. 
A  little  farther  on  there  was  a  kind  of  lofty  throne,  under 
the  canopy  of  which  were  seated  two  boys,  dressed  in  the 
richest  silks  and  jewels,  with  half  a  dozen  gorgeous 
attendants  to  hold  gilded  fans  and  maces  behind  them : 
small  boys,  who  might  have  been  princes  themselves,  by 
the  haughty  insouciance  of  their  demeanour.  These  were 
the  hereditary  mahants,  the  heads,  by  right  of  descent, 
of  the  great  religious  corporations.  They  typified  that 
insolent  ecclesiasticism  of  which  Benares  is  the  centre, 
even  as  the  fakirs  represented  the  crowd  of  ignorant 
fanatics  who  wander  into  its  courts,  as  irresponsible  as 
its  sacred  bulls  and  cows,  and  not  much  more  intelligent. 

Benares  is  the  embodiment  of  Hinduism,  and,  like 
Hinduism,  it  leaves  on  the  mind  the  impression  of  a  con- 
fused jumble,  a  mass  of  contradictions.  What  is  the 
Hindu  religion  ?  Men  who  have  spent  more  years  upon  it 
than  I  have  spent  days  confess  themselves  unable  to 
answer  the  question.  To  the  superficial  observer  it  seems 
to  be  the  strangest  mixture :  magic  tempered  by  meta- 
physics, according  to  one  epigrammatic  description.     The 


266  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

outsider,  however,  sees  more  of  the  magic,  the  crude 
idolatry,  than  of  the  philosophy.  Perhaps  he  does  it  an 
injustice  on  that  account.  The  spiritual  impress  which 
Brahmanism  has  laid  upon  the  Indian  people  is  hidden 
from  him.  But  what  he  does  see  is  the  welter  of  super- 
stition in  which  it  leaves  the  masses,  the  tyranny  of 
priestcraft  it  lays  upon  them,  the  solid  barrier  with  which 
it  walls  round  private  life,  the  crude,  cumbrous,  repellent 
maze  of  rules  and  observances,  on  which  it  places  the 
stamp  of  despotic  custom  and  immutable  law. 

It  is  full  of  contradictions,  not,  perhaps,  in  this 
differing  from  other  religions.  It  enjoins  tenderness, 
self-sacrifice,  mercy,  so  that  some  of  its  votaries  will  not 
take  the  life  of  a  stinging  insect ;  and  it  can  exhibit  the 
most  relentless  cruelty,  especially  where  its  own  formal- 
ism is  involved.  ■  Thou  shalt  not  kill,'  is  the  maxim  ; 
therefore  a  pious  Hindu  will  allow  an  ox  with  a  broken 
leg  to  starve  to  death  in  lingering  agony  by  the  wayside. 
When  you  hear  of  the  barbarities  practised  upon  women 
in  child-birth,  of  the  savage  rites  with  which  the  dying 
are  surrounded,  the  child-marriages,  the  persecution  of 
widows,  you  sometimes  feel  inclined  to  wish  that  the 
missionaries  and  the  Imperial  Government  could  combine 
to  sweep  the  whole  business  into  the  sea. 

Yet  the  Hindus  are  a  kindly  people,  with  more  highly 
developed  family  affections  than  ourselves.  If  they  do 
cruel  things  it  is  with  the  intention  to  be  humane.  Their 
humanity  looks  beyond  this  transient  world  to  that  which 
includes  and  comprehends  all  others,  and  it  points  vaguely 
to  the  supreme  abstraction,  of  which  the  horrible  gods  and 
distorted  idols  are  grotesque  or  terrifying  symbols. 

Of  death,  of  the  dead,  and  of  the  dying  you  see  much 
at  Benares,  for  every  Hindu  would  like  to  perish  by  the 
Ganges  if  he  could.  The  Burning  Ghat  on  the  water- 
front  is   always   busy,  and  the  tourist,  as  he  is  rowed 


HINDUISM   AND  THE   CASTES  267 

along,  can  see  the  pile  of  logs  crackling  briskly  with  a 
stiff  brown  corpse  laid  upon  it.  There  is  no  sanctity  and 
no  privacy  about  this  place  of  cremation.  The  poor  relic 
of  humanity  lies  unregarded  by  the  strand  before  the 
flames  do  their  work  upon  it.  Pariah  dogs,  the  sacred 
dogs  of  Benares,  prowl  about  with  expectant  eyes ;  know- 
ing that  the  body  may  sometimes  be  thrown  half- 
consumed  into  the  river. 

That  used  often  to  be  done  to  save  the  expense  of  fuel, 
though  it  happens  less  frequently  now  that  the  Govern- 
ment provides  wood  enough  for  every  pyre  free  of  charge. 
The  Burners  of  the  Dead,  an  unclean  caste,  who  alone  may 
tend  the  funeral  fire,  are  sitting  on  a  neighbouring  bulk, 
engaged  in  cheerful  conversation  ;  others  are  raking  with 
long  rods  among  the  blazing  heaps,  poking  down  an 
exposed  skull  or  a  charred  protruding  foot ;  close  by 
women  are  dipping  clothes  in  the  Ganges,  or  filling  their 
water-pots,  without  a  glance  at  the  pile  and  its  burden. 
Life  is  cheap  in  India,  and  death  too  common. 

At  certain  places,  and  in  Benares  especially,  when 
Hindus  are  at  the  point  of  death,  their  kinsmen  drag  them 
from  their  sick-rooms,  that  they  may  breathe  their  last 
beside  a  holy  river.  A  heartless  custom,  it  seems,  which 
must  be  the  cause  of  much  suffering  to  racked  and 
shattered  frames,  and  is  at  times  scarcely  distinguishable 
from  murder ;  for  in  the  old  days,  if  the  victim,  when 
brought  to  the  water,  still  obstinately  refused  to  render 
up  his  soul,  they  would  occasionally  help  him  on  his  way 
by  filling  his  mouth  with  mud. 

Yet  even  this  rite  is  not  always  repulsive.  In  Benares, 
drifting  down  the  stream,  one  late  and  luminous  afternoon, 
some  weeks  before  the  approach  of  the  Prince  had  caused 
the  banks  to  be  beset  with  decorated  house-boats,  I  passed 
close  to  the  Manikarnika  Ghat,  the  most  sanctified  of  all 
the  stairways  that  lead  to  the  Ganges.     At  the  foot  of  the 


268  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

steps,  a  group  of  three  or  four  men  were  bending  over  a 
recumbent  form,  swathed  in  white.  As  we  came  opposite 
the  ghat  we  saw  that  the  figure  was  that  of  a  woman, 
lying  stretched  upon  a  couch  or  mattress  of  cotton,  with 
the  feet  just  touched  by  the  sacred  water. 

She  had  been  brought  here  to  die,  so  that  her  spirit 
might  pass  into  the  other  world,  saved  and  purified  by  the 
river  of  redemption.  The  dying  light  fell  full  upon  the 
dying  face ;  and  it  showed  us  the  eyes  already  half -closed 
and  a  smile  of  transfiguring  peace  playing  about  the  pale 
and  quivering  lips.  There  was  no  suggestion  of  harshness 
in  this  scene ;  it  was  one  of  painful  beauty.  Happiness 
was  written  on  the  wan  features  under  the  loose  white  coif, 
the  happiness  of  an  intense  and  passionate  calm,  like  that 
of  the  doomed  Cenci  girl  on  Leonardo's  canvas ;  and  in 
the  attitudes  of  the  watching  attendants  there  seemed 
to  me  a  grave  and  anxious  reverence. 

But  when  I  looked  up  the  bank  I  saw  another  party 
carrying  a  litter  on  which  a  sick  old  man  was  lying. 
They  were  running  fast,  and  audible  groans  broke  from 
the  wretched  shrivelled  creature,  as  they  jolted  his  crazy 
catafalque  over  the  rough  path,  anxious  to  get  it  down 
to  the  brink  before  the  end  came.  So  Hinduism  shows 
its  twofold  aspect ;  and  who  shall  say  how  far  the  deep 
spiritual  tranquillity  it  yields  its  votaries  is  balanced  by 
the  wrongs,  the  follies,  and  the  barbarisms,  which  hive 
under  its  shelter  ? 

There  is  no  religion  in  which  the  difference  between 
the  elect  and  the  common  herd  is  so  marked.  From  a 
Welsh  revivalist  to  an  Oxford  professor  of  theology  the 
acclivity  is  steep.  But  the  gulf  between  the  highly 
cultivated  Hindu,  who  is  a  philosophical  Pantheist,  and 
the  villager,  smearing  himself  with  the  blood  of  butchered 
goats  before  the  altar  of  Durga,  is  wider.  In  practice, 
one  might  say  that  Hinduism  consists  largely  of  priest- 


HINDUISM' AND   THE  CASTES  269 

craft  and  a  genial,  primitive,  rollicking,  unclean  idolatry. 
To  '  feed  and  fee  '  the  Brahmans  is  the  main  duty  of  the 
layman  :  that  done,  he  is  free  to  worship  stocks  and  stones, 
or  ghosts  and  demons,  or  any  fee-faw-fo-fum  images  that 
seize  his  fancy ;  and  his  morals  may  take  care  of  them- 
selves, provided  he  sticks  to  certain  caste  practices  and 
abstains  from  the  killing  of  cows. 

Loose  as  the  system  is,  it  holds  two  hundred  and  forty 
millions  in  a  clasp  which  has  never  relaxed  through  the 
centuries,  and  is  just  about  as  firmly  fastened  to-day  as 
ever.  It  is  natural  to  assume  that  Hinduism  is  a  waning 
force,  weakened  by  its  impact  upon  modern  science  and 
progress.  But  that  is  extremely  doubtful.  Some  of  those 
who  know  most  about  India  believe  that  the  change  is 
in  the  opposite  direction.  They  tell  us  that  of  late  years 
there  has  been  a  striking  revival  of  Brahmanism,  that  it 
is  going  forward  instead  of  backward,  that  it  is  clutching 
closer  into  its  subtle  embrace  whole  classes  and  tribes 
who  before  hung  loose  from  its  influence. 

At  the  first  glance  one  would  say  that  the  railway,  the 
telegraph,  the  printing-press,  the  secondary  school,  must 
make  short  work  of  the  idol-worship,  the  hideous  altars, 
the  battening  temple  hordes,  the  offerings,  and  the  sacri- 
fices. But  this  does  not  seem  to  be  the  case.  It  may  be 
that  Hinduism  is  even  assisted  in  its  onward  march  by 
these  new  agencies.  The  railways  make  the  pilgrimages 
to  the  sacred  rivers  and  the  famous  shrines  easier  and 
more  popular.  These  festivals  are  public  holidays  as 
much  as  religious  celebrations;  but  the  priests  and  the 
sadhus  profit  by  them.  They  have  learnt  how  to  use 
the  printing-press,  and  with  their  vernacular  tracts  and 
cheap  liturgies  they  are  bringing  into  the  regular  Hindu 
communion  many  aboriginals  and  Animists  and  outcasts 
and  others,  who  were  formerly  mere  pagans.  Now  that 
all  India  is  drawn  closer  together  by  better  communi- 


270  A    VISION   OF   INDIA 

cations  and  the  printed  word,  so  that  its  various  pro- 
vinces are  growing  conscious  of  a  certain  identity,  the 
one  thing  they  have  in  common,  which  is  the  Brah- 
manical  system,  emerges  more  clearly.  It  is  becoming 
better  organised,  and  is  gaining  some  of  the  attributes 
of  a  church  as  well  as  a  vague  creed. 

But  education — surely  this  must  tell  ?  No  doubt  it 
does ;  but  the  educated  Hindu  sometimes  reconciles 
the  Higher  Thought  with  the  Lower  Act  in  a  startling 
fashion.  It  is  not  merely  that  cultivated  native 
gentlemen,  university  graduates,  trained  lawyers,  fluent 
writers,  will  doff  their  European  ideas  with  their  European 
garments  inside  their  own  doors,  and  submit  themselves 
to  the  most  irrational  code  of  caste  formularies.  They 
do  more.  Persons  who  can  quote  Herbert  Spencer  and 
Weissmann  at  an  English  dinner-table  may  '  go  Fanti ' 
at  any  moment.  You  may  have  a  native  friend,  let  us  say 
a  Sessions  Judge — I  am  not  giving  an  imaginary  case — 
who  seems  in  the  ordinary  way  all  that  is  enlightened 
and  refined.  He  understands  our  fashions,  is  acquainted 
with  our  literature,  behaves  in  his  office,  or  when  you  ask 
him  to  your  house,  much  like  any  well-bred  English- 
man. But  the  festival  of  Kali  comes,  and  you  must 
not  be  surprised  to  find  him,  daubed  with  red  paint, 
half-naked,  with  dishevelled  hair,  howling  and  shrieking 
in  the  midst  of  a  frenzied  crowd  of  idol- worshippers. 

Some  people,  whose  opinions  deserve  respect,  hold 
that  Hinduism  is  destined  eventually  to  succumb  before 
the  advance  of  Christianity.  The  Light  of  the  Gospel, 
waxing  perhaps  somewhat  dimmer  in  the  West,  may  be 
relumed  in  the  East. 

Oh,  never  star 
Was  lost  here  but  it  rose  afar  ! 
Look  East,  where  whole  new  thousands  are. 
In  Vishnu-land  what  Avatar  ? 


HINDUISM   AND   THE   CASTES  271 

Not,  I  think,  this  avatar.  Christianity,  it  is  true,  is 
making  some  progress,  and  the  actual  increase  in  the 
number  of  native  converts  between  the  last  two  Censuses 
is  remarkable.  It  rose  from  1,246,000  in  1872  to 
2,664,000  in  1901,  which  is  at  the  rate  of  more  than 
113  per  cent,  for  the  thirty  years.  In  Madras,  during  the 
decade  1891-1901,  the  increase  of  the  whole  population 
was  7*2  per  cent.,  while  that  of  the  Christians  was 
18-1  per  cent.  In  the  Southern  Presidency  one  person  in 
thirty-eight  is  a  Christian,  and  in  some  of  the  contiguous 
native  states  the  proportion  is  even  higher,  so  that  it 
amounts  to  almost  a  quarter  of  the  entire  population  in 
Cochin  and  Travancore.  It  is  in  the  South  that  Chris- 
tianity is  strongest ;  for  here  a  colony  of  the  so-called 
Syrian  Christians  has  been  in  existence  possibly  since 
Apostolic  times,1  and  the  Portuguese  and  the  Society  of 
Jesus  have  been  making  Eoman  Catholics  of  the  Tamils 
and  Telugus  for  centuries.  Of  late  the  Anglicans,  and 
various  other  Protestant  missionaries,  have  been  busy, 
and  have  gained  a  considerable  number  of  converts,  chiefly 
in  Madras,  but  also  to  a  lesser  degree  in  Bengal,  the 
Punjab,  and  other  provinces.  But,  taking  India  as  a 
whole,  there  is  only  one  Christian  for  every  ninety-nine 
persons  belonging  to  some  other  religious  community. 

And  the  increase,  such  as  it  is,  does  not  show  itself 
among  the  educated  classes,  nor  among  those  with  much 
pretension  to  social  status.  The  high-caste  Hindu  does 
not  become  a  convert.  I  once  asked  an  excellent 
missionary,  who  had  been  for  over  thirty  years  in  a 
native  State  and  spoke  with  some  satisfaction  of  the 
results  of  his  work,  how  many  Brahmans  he  had  brought 
into  his  fold.  He  answered,  *  One ' ;  and  I  afterwards 
ascertained  that  this  solitary  proselyte  was  a  man  who 

1  The  Syrian  Church   in  India  was   said   to  have   been   founded   by 
St.  Thomas.     Its  adherents  still  number  about  half  a  million  persons. 


272  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

had  got  into  difficulties  with  his  own  communion  because 
of  a  marriage  which  violated  caste  rules.  The  Christian 
converts  come  from  another  class  of  society. 

In  the  Indian  Army  List  the  constitution  of  the  regi- 
ments is  given  according  to  the  race  and  caste  of  the 
soldiers :  two  companies  of  Sikhs  and  two  companies  of 
Punjabi  Mohammedans,  and  so  on.  Against  the  names 
of  a  few  of  the  battalions,  which  bear  the  old  title  of 
Carnatic  Infantry,  one  finds  this  curious  entry  :  •  4  com- 
panies Sikhs ;  2  companies  Mohammedans  ;  2  companies 
Pariahs  and  Christians.'  For  official  purposes  it  seems 
that  Christians  can  be  conveniently  classed  with  the 
pariahs  or  outcasts.  There  is  a  certain  brusqueness  in 
the  description,  but  it  corresponds  roughly  with  the  facts. 
The  converts  to  Christianity,  especially  the  recent  con- 
verts, are  drawn  (so  the  Madras  Census  officer  tells  us) 

almost  entirely  from  the  classes  of  Hindus  which  are  lowest  in 
the  social  scale.  These  people  have  little  to  lose  by  forsaking 
the  creed  of  their  forefathers.  As  long  as  they  remain  Hindus 
they  are  daily  and  hourly  made  to  feel  that  they  are  of 
commoner  clay  than  their  neighbours.  Any  attempts  which 
they  may  make  to  educate  themselves  or  their  children  are 
actively  discouraged  by  the  classes  above  them  :  caste  restric- 
tions prevent  them  from  quitting  the  toilsome,  uncertain,  and 
undignified  means  of  subsistence,  to  which  custom  has  con- 
demned them,  and  taking  to  a  handicraft  or  a  trade  :  they  are 
snubbed  and  repressed  on  all  public  occasions :  are  refused 
admission  even  to  the  temples  of  their  gods  :  and  can  hope  for 
no  more  helpful  partner  of  their  joys  and  sorrows  than  the 
unkempt  and  unhandy  maiden  of  the  paracheri  with  her 
very  primitive  notions  of  comfort  and  cleanliness. 

Whatever  one  may  think  of  missionary  effort  in  a 
general  way,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  it  is  an 
excellent  thing  for  many  of  these  poor  outcasts  to  be 
received  into  a  body  which  releases  them  from  the  iron 


HINDUISM  AND  THE  CASTES  273 

shackles  fettered  on  them  at  birth  and  helps  them  to 
escape  from  their  semi-servile  condition.  The  converted 
sweeper  or  pariah  has  made  a  distinct  advance  in  the 
social  scale.  He  has  acquired  a  position  of  his  own,  he  is 
a  member  of  an  association  which  includes  many  of  his 
1  betters,'  he  is  allowed  to  cultivate  his  self-respect,  and  he 
can,  if  he  pleases,  acquire  the  rudiments  of  an  education, 
not  to  mention  other  advantages ;  for  the  missionaries 
are  charitable,  and  have  some  funds  at  their  disposal.  It 
is  significant,  though  not  surprising,  that  there  is  often 
a  perceptible  growth  of  Christian  converts  in  districts 
where  poverty  has  been  accentuated  by  recent  drought 
and  famine. 

But  while  Christianity  is  thus  doing  something  for  the 
lowest  grade  of  Hindus,  there  does  not  seem  much 
evidence  that  it  is  touching  the  higher  classes.  Chris- 
tian ethics  exercise  a  certain  impalpable  influence  on 
Hindu  thought ;  for  Hinduism  has  a  capacity  for  assimi- 
lating other  faiths  and  systems.  If  the  Brahmans  found 
Christianity  really  formidable,  I  imagine  they  would 
absorb  it,  just  as  they  absorbed  Buddhism.  They  are 
content  to  ignore  it,  so  long  as  it  does  not  get  far  beyond 
the  village  helots  and  the  residuum  of  the  towns.  As  for 
the  educated  Hindu,  when  he  has  tasted  of  the  springs 
of  Western  enlightenment  and  emancipated  himself  from 
the  tenets  of  his  fathers,  he  commonly  becomes  an 
agnostic  or  a  rationalist,  usually  retaining  just  enough 
orthodoxy,  in  matters  of  ceremonial,  to  avoid  shocking 
public  opinion.  Christianity  offers  him  few  temptations. 
He  can  get  all  the  latitude  he  needs  without  leaving  his 
own  community. 


274  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 


CHAPTER  XIX 
ISLAM   AND   ITS   CHILDREN 

The  banners  of  the  morning  were  streaming  in  folds  of 
flying  crimson  across  a  sky  of  pearl  as  the  luxurious 
special  train  of  the  Great  Indian  Peninsula  Railway 
slowed  up  outside  the  cantonment  station.  I  threw  down 
the  window-shutter  and  looked  out  upon  a  sheet  of  water, 
a  floor  of  smooth  and  polished  turquoise,  edged  with  a 
blood-red  border  where  the  flaming  light  had  caught  and 
stained  the  shallows.  It  was  the  great  tank,  or  artificial 
lake,  which  lies  just  outside  the  Nizam's  capital  of 
Hyderabad. 

The  city  was  all  astir,  for  the  Nizam  had  brought  out 
his  troops  and  his  household  retainers  to  do  honour  to  the 
Shahzada,  and  the  townspeople  and  many  visitors  from 
the  countryside  were  in  the  streets.  So  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  of  Indian  towns  was  seen  at  its  best. 
Nowhere,  except  perhaps  in  Peshawar  and  in  Bombay, 
had  one  seen  more  diverse  types  assembled.  Hyderabad 
is  the  premier  Mohammedan  State  of  India,  and  Islam 
was  very  variously  represented. 

Fresh  from  Mysore  with  its  plump,  cheerful,  swarthy 
little  men  and  women,  we  were  here  once  more  face  to 
face  with  some  old  friends  from  the  North — hawk-nosed 
Pathans,  tall  Punjabi  Mohammedans,  Rohillas,  Afridis, 
and  Afghans.  The  Hyderabad  sovereigns  have  long 
drawn  their  mercenaries  from  all  Mussulman  India  and 
beyond   it.      Here   we   saw   companies   of   the   Nizam's 


ISLAM  AND   ITS  CHILDREN  275 

famous  '  Arab '  irregulars,  their  heads  enwrapped  in  loose 
hooded  turbans  of  saffron  yellow,  which  is  the  Hyderabad 
court  colour.  Arabs  these  men  are  called  ;  but  many  of 
them  had  the  thick  lips,  the  woolly  hair,  and  the  ebony 
skin  of  Africa. 

There  were  the  Nizam's  regular  troops,  too,  in  baggy 
red  breeches,  with  crooked  sword-bayonets,  oddly  re- 
miniscent of  the  French  infantry  of  the  Second  Empire 
days.  Alongside  these  relics  of  the  past,  with  their 
obsolete  Enfield  rifles,  were  other  Hyderabad  battalions 
armed  with  Martinis  ;  and  finally  his  Highness' s  Imperial 
Service  Cavalry,  with  magazine  carbines  and  all  the  best 
modern  equipment,  a  corps  able  to  hold  its  own  with  the 
picked  regiment  of  British  Indian  Lancers  which  had 
come  down  from  Secunderabad  to  act  as  the  Prince's 
escort. 

There  is  much  that  is  reminiscent  of  Turkey  in  this 
the  largest  Moslem  capital  outside  the  dominions  of  the 
Padishah.  Gone  are  the  days  when  scarcely  a  man  walked 
in  Hyderabad  without  arms  in  his  hand  or  about  his 
person.  Yet  you  still  see  the  peasant  coming  in  from  the 
wilder  rural  districts  of  the  Dekhan  with  his  brass-barrelled 
hollow-butted  gun  over  his  shoulder,  and  the  yeoman  or 
small  squireen  with  a  broad  curved  yataghan  in  a  scabbard 
of  faded  velvet  belted  to  his  side,  and  a  whole  magazine 
of  knives,  daggers,  and  flint-lock  pistols  in  his  leather 
girdle.  Here,  also,  are  many  men  and  boys  in  the  red  fez 
or  tarbush,  which  is  an  uncommon  headgear  in  the  rest 
of  India  ;  and  sometimes  you  observe  that  it  completes 
the  costume  of  a  portly  gentleman  in  a  black  frock  coat, 
who  might  put  Pasha  or  Bey  to  his  name  in  Cairo  or 
Constantinople. 

In  the  intervals  of  waiting,  the  soldiers  sit  on  the 
heels  of  their  deplorable  shoes  and  smoke  bad  cigarettes, 
and  slouch  about,  as  they  do  in  Monastir  and  Salonika. 

T  2 


276  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

Suddenly  they  spring  to  attention,  and  present  arms ;  and 
the  civilians,  frock-coated  officials  and  all,  prostrate  them- 
selves, with  an  ultra-Oriental  salaam,  heads  knocking  the 
ground,  as  when  in  Stamboul  the  Sultan  drives  forth  to 
the  Selamlik.  A  yellow-painted  landau  dashes  by,  and  in 
it  is  seated  a  gentleman  with  side-whiskers  and  sharply 
cut,  rather  Semitic  features — a  little  gentleman,  incon- 
spicuously dressed,  who  looks  about  him  with  the  eye  of 
a  king.  You  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  this  is  his  High- 
ness the  Nizam,  sole  and  autocratic  sovereign,  by  the 
grace  of  God  and  the  Government  of  India,  of  a  territory 
as  large  as  Great  Britain,  and  ruler  of  more  people  than 
are  contained  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada  and  the  Common- 
wealth of  Australia  taken  together. 

It  is  a  long  walk  through  Hyderabad,  for  the  city  is 
larger  even  than  its  population  of  450,000  would  lead  you 
to  imagine.  Past  white- walled  bungalows  and  public 
buildings,  set  back  in  roomy  gardens,  under  high 
mediaBval-looking  arches,  through  furlong  after  furlong  of 
the  painted  hutches  of  the  bazaar,  you  come  at  length  to 
the  far  end  of  the  town,  where  the  Faluknama  Palace  is 
perched  on  high. 

About  the  story  of  this  royal  residence  there  is  a 
distinct  flavour  of  the  nearer,  and  the  older,  East.  It 
was  built,  out  of  his  modest  savings,  by  one  of  the 
ministers  of  the  last  Nizam — not,  of  course,  the  great 
Sir  Salar  Jung,  who  was  everything  that  was  honourable 
and  distinguished,  but  another  somewhat  less  precise. 
The  Nizam's  favourite  sultana  cast  the  eyes  of  desire 
upon  this  delectable  abode,  and  pointed  out  to  her  lord  that 
it  was  far  too  good  for  a  subject,  and  at  any  rate  much 
better  than  the  old  palace  down  below  in  the  town.  So 
the  minister  was  informed  that  he  would  have  to  sell  the 
pleasure-house  to  his  master,  and,  sorely  against  his  will, 
he  complied,  receiving,  as  some  say,  its  full  equivalent  in 


ISLAM  AND  ITS  CHILDREN  277 

rupees,  and,  as  others  aver,  considerably  less.  However 
this  may  have  been,  the  Light  of  the  Zenana  soon  tired 
of  the  toy.  After  a  few  months  it  was  abandoned,  and  it 
has  never  been  regularly  occupied  since.  Except  when 
the  Nizam  entertains  guests  of  state,  it  lies  upon  the 
hillside  empty  and  silent,  with  its  saloons  filled  with 
French  furniture  and  gilding  and  glass-lustre  chandeliers — 
a  monument  of  reckless  expenditure  and  uncalculating 
caprice. 

From  the  terrace  of  this  same  palace  there  is  a  pro- 
spect which  is  hard  to  beat.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill,  the 
great  city  with  its  suburbs  spreads  out  over  many  miles 
of  country,  a  dim  blur  of  groves  and  gardens,  with  the 
lanes  of  small  dwelling-houses  hidden  by  the  leafage,  and 
only  here  and  there  the  outlines  of  a  palace,  or  the 
bulbous  domes  and  white  shafts  of  a  mosque,  showing 
among  the  date-palms  and  mango-trees.  Beyond  the 
suburbs  and  the  sparkling  azure  lakes  lies  the  grey-brown 
Dekhan  tableland,  crossed  by  jutting  ridges  and  ragged 
masses  of  isolated  rock. 

On  one  of  these  eminences  you  are  able  to  make  out 
the  remnants  of  walls  and  towers  and  ramparts,  which  are 
the  colossal  ruins  of  the  fortress-palace  of  Golconda,  that 
famous  stronghold  of  the  earlier  Mussulman  dynasty, 
eventually  extinguished  by  the  Moghul  Emperors.  India 
has  many  hill-fortresses ;  for  in  its  centuries  of  warfare 
no  potentate,  whether  he  was  emperor,  king,  or  feudal 
noble,  could  deem  himself  safe  unless  he  could  shelter 
his  wives,  his  treasures,  and  his  faithful  followers  behind 
some  impregnable  fastness,  builded  upon  a  rock.  There 
is  one  such,  a  marvel  of  inaccessible  situation  and  defen- 
sive ingenuity,  at  Daulatabad,  near  the  cave-temples  of 
Ellora,  in  the  far  corner  of  the  Nizam's  state. 

But  Golconda  is  the  most  impressive  of  all ;  perhaps 
the  most  impressive  castle  ruin  in  the  world.     Its  size  is 


278  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

prodigious ;  Kenilworth  or  Warwick  would .  go  into  a 
corner  of  the  vast  space  of  boulder-strewn  hill  enclosed 
within  its  crenellated  walls.  Whole  blocks  of  dwelling- 
houses  and  nests  of  courts  and  alleys  were  scattered  here 
and  there  among  the  ramparts  and  bastions  and  fortified 
terraces  ;  the  great  stone-stepped  path  that  leads  through 
them  to  the  palace-rooms  at  the  summit  of  the  hill  is  like 
the  main  street  of  a  town.  The  fortress  seems  built  to 
hold,  not  merely  a  garrison,  but  a  people ;  as  indeed  it 
did  in  the  long  siege  of  1687,  when  for  eight  months 
Abdul  Hasan,  the  last  of  the  Kutab  Shahi  kings,  held  out 
against  the  hosts  of  Aurangzeb.  The  defence  is  a  fine 
romantic  story  of  heroism,  treachery,  and  valorous  ad- 
venture. But  in  the  end  the  Moghuls  prevailed;  and 
it  is  the  descendant  of  the  Moghul's  lieutenant,  the 
Nizain-ul-Mulk,  the  Viceroy  of  the  Dekhan,  who  rules 
over  Hyderabad  to-day  as  the  Premier  Prince  of  India 
under  the  Imperial  Crown  of  Britain. 

'  If  the  Nizam  goes,  all  is  lost.'  So  wrote  the  Gover- 
nor of  Bombay  to  the  Kesident  at  Hyderabad  in  the  crisis 
of  the  Mutiny.  But  the  Nizam  did  not  go.  He  stood 
faithfully  by  us,  remembering  that  we  had  saved  his  house 
when  all  Mohammedanism  was  being  swept  out  of  India 
by  the  Mahratta  flood.  The  fidelity  of  the  Dekhan  princes 
has  been  rewarded  by  leaving  them  in  a  position  of  quasi- 
independence  such  as  no  other  chief  in  India  enjoys. 

But^this  has  made  them  rather  formidable  too ;  and 
we  have  paid  them  the  compliment  of  keeping  pretty 
nearly, the  largest  concentrated  force  in  India  in  their 
dominions.  At  Secunderabad,  which  is  an  outlying  suburb 
of  Hyderabad,  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  able  to  review 
some  nine  thousand  troops,  including  four  British  regi- 
ments and; three  batteries  of  Boyal  Artillery.  We  do 
not,  however,  interfere  more  than  we  can  help  with  the 
Nizam's  internal  policy,  and  we  leave  him  to  carry  on  his 


ISLAM   AND  ITS  CHILDREN  279 

domestic  administration  chiefly  by  the  aid  of  his  own 
subjects.  There  are  very  few  Englishmen  in  his  High- 
ness's  employment,  and  only  an  exiguous  squad  of 
officials  has  been  *  lent '  him  by  the  Government  of  India. 

That  the  principality,  under  such  circumstances,  should 
be  as  well  managed  as  our  own  provinces,  or  even  as 
some  of  the  other  native  states,  is  not  to  be  expected. 
For  thirty  years  the  Nizam's  predecessors  were  guided  by 
the  counsels  of  Sir  Salar  Jung,  the  greatest  of  native 
Indian  statesmen  in  modern  times,  who  introduced  and 
carried  out  salutary  reforms  in  every  department.  There 
has  been  some  falling-oil  since  his  death,  and  Hyderabad 
in  recent  years  has  not  been  exactly  a  model  state,  nor 
is  it  so  at  present.  But  it  is  improving.  The  present 
Nizam  has  his  faults.  He  is  said  to  be  somewhat  indo- 
lent and  dilatory,  and  a  little  too  Oriental  in  his  ways. 
Yet  he  is  understood  to  be  a  capable  man,  with  much 
natural  ability  and  considerable  force  of  character.  He 
takes  a  great  interest  in  educational  matters,  and  is  a 
munificent  supporter  of  Mohammedan  teaching  insti- 
tutions, not  merely  in  his  own  dominions,  but  in  other 
parts  of  India.  He  appears  to  be  honestly  desirous  to  do 
his  best  for  his  twelve  millions  of  subjects,  of  whom  the 
most  part  are  peasants  painfully  striving  to  squeeze  a 
subsistence  out  of  a  hard  and  unfruitful  soil. 

The  Nizam  is  a  personage  in  India  outside  his  own 
territory.  For  Mohammedanism,  if  it  has  lost  its  old 
political  predominance,  is  still  a  great  force  in  India.  It 
is  the  faith  of  one  person  out  of  every  five  in  the  country. 
The  King-Emperor  rules  more  than  half  the  Mohamme- 
dan population  of  the  world,  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  coming 
a  very  long  way  behind  him.  There  is  one  province — that 
of  the  North -West  Frontier — which  is  almost  entirely 
Mohammedan,  the  Hindus  being  an  unimportant  minority. 
Mohammedans  are  numerous  in  the  Punjab,  and  they  are 


280  A  VISION   OF   INDIA 

to  be  found  scattered  everywhere  down  to  the  extreme 
South,  especially  in  the  towns. 

In  Eastern  Bengal  there  are  some  twenty-seven  or 
twenty-eight  million  followers  of  the  Prophet,  and  in 
this  region  they  are  increasing  more  rapidly  than  the 
Hindus ;  for  the  Mussulman,  with  his  varied  diet,  has  a 
better  physique  than  the  pulse  and  grain  feeding  Brah- 
manists,  and,  moreover,  he  does  not  believe  in  child- 
wedlock,  nor  does  he  think  it  wrong  for  widows  to 
re-marry.  The  high  and  growing  proportion  of  the 
Mohammedan  population  in  Bengal  is  one  of  the  hard 
nuts  for  the  Bengalis  to  crack.  It  is  also  an  elementary 
fact  which  is  not,  I  think,  so  generally  apprehended  in 
England  as  it  should  be. 

By  race  these  Bengal  Mohammedans  are  akin  to  the 
Hindus,  and  that,  indeed,  is  true  of  the  great  majority  of 
their  co-religionists  outside  the  frontier  districts.  Most 
of  them  are  descended  from  Hindus  who  were  converted 
during  the  long  period  of  Moslem  rule.  They  exist  as  a 
standing  argument  against  that  modern  doctrine  which 
ascribes  everything  to  race,  and  nothing  to  environment, 
education,  social  conditions,  and  custom. 

It  is  commonly  held  that  the  religion  and  social  system 
of  Islam  tend  to  develop  the  character  of  the  Indian 
Mohammedan  somewhat  at  the  expense  of  his  intellect. 
He  is  simpler,  braver,  more  masculine  than  the  Hindu, 
more  devout,  in  a  rough,  practical,  straightforward  fashion, 
but  less  subtle,  less  ingenious,  less  acute,  and  less  capable 
of  assimilating  the  methods  of  modern  education.  He 
makes  a  first-rate  soldier,  he  is  useful  as  a  policeman,  an 
inspector,  or  a  watchman,  and  he  does  fairly  well  in  any 
position  where  courage,  fidelity,  and  a  certain  self-respect 
are  requisite ;  at  times  he  exhibits  a  distinct  aptitude  for 
trade,  and  as  a  shopkeeper  he  is  frequently  successful. 
He  is  a  convenient  man  to  have  as  butler  or  personal 


op  Bjliill 

11 

!  ■       ~      'ctf        ill 

I 

H*  wl;     IIIllll 

1  «   K    « 

(((((  c 


c  c  c 

I      < 


ISLAM  AND  ITS  CHILDKEN  281 

attendant,  for  in  the  first  place  he  is  in  moderation  honest, 
and,  secondly,  he  is  not  under  the  tyranny  of  caste  rules, 
and  can  serve  food  to  a  Christian  without  a  qualm. 

But  the  Hindu  beats  him  at  the  office  and  the  desk 
and  in  the  class-room.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
there  ought  not  to  be  direct  appointments  to  the  higher 
Civil  Service  by  competitive  examination  in  India.  It  is 
tolerably  certain  that  in  this  contest  the  babu  and  the 
Brahman  would  drive  the  Mohammedan  out  of  the  field, 
and  that  would  be  unfortunate.  Most  Indian  Mussul- 
mans cherish  in  their  hearts  some  memory  of  the  days 
when  their  fathers  were  the  masters  of  India,  and  they 
believe,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that  if  ever  the  English  power 
were  shaken  they  would  regain  their  old  predominance. 
In  the  meanwhile  they  will  endure  being  the  subjects  of 
a  Christian  race,  whose  character  they  respect,  and  whose 
religion  they  can  understand.  But  to  the  feebler  tribes 
of  idol- worshippers,  as  they  consider  them,  they  protest 
indignantly  that  it  would  be  an  outrage  to  ask  them  to 
yield  obedience. 

Englishmen,  for  their  part,  find  it  easy  to  get  on  with 
the  children  of  Islam.  They  have  no  difficulty  in  liking 
men  who  have  good  manners  without  servility,  and  who 
possess  some  of  the  open-air  qualities  and  tastes  we 
ascribe  to  ourselves.  The  Hindu,  with  his  glib  tongue, 
his  pliant  brain  and  back,  his  fantastic  social  rites,  and 
his  incomprehensible  religion,  puzzles  and  annoys  us.  The 
Mohammedan  gentleman  is  just  the  man  we  should  like 
to  see  taking  a  prominent  part  in  our  provincial  adminis- 
tration. The  difficulty  is  to  get  him  there  :  for  he  is  apt  to 
be  too  conservative  and  obscurantist,  too  haughtily  con- 
temptuous of  modern  progress  and  modern  learning,  and 
too  much  under  the  influence  of  an  obsolete  system  of 
education.  Mohammedans  of  the  better  class  are  still 
rather  disposed  to  regard  Western  knowledge  as  at  once 


282  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

impious  and  vulgar,  tending  to  disbelief  in  the  Koran  and 
to  the  neglect  of  the  classical  literatures  of  Persian  and 
Arabic. 

There  is,  however,  a  progressive  movement  in  Indian 
Mohammedanism.  The  chief  promoter  of  this  reform 
was  the  late  Sir  Syed  Ahmed  Khan,  a  man  who  did  more 
to  broaden  the  minds  and  liberalise  the  views  of  his 
co-religionists  than  any  Indian  Mohammedan  since  the 
Emperor  Akbar.  Sir  Syed,  who  was  a  member  of  an 
old  family  which  had  held  high  office  under  the  Moghuls, 
devoted  his  life,  his  conspicuous  ability,  and  the  whole  of 
a  considerable  fortune,  to  the  encouragement  of  education 
on  European  lines  among  those  of  his  countrymen  who 
professed  the  faith  of  Islam.  He  was  to  the  end  a  devout 
Mussulman,  and  he  believed  that  Moslem  schools  and 
colleges  should  be  strictly  denominational ;  that  is  to  say, 
that  instruction  in  the  doctrines  of  their  creed,  by  their 
own  qualified  teachers,  should  be  provided  for  the  students. 
But  in  all  secular  subjects  he  saw  no  reason  why  the 
youthful  Mohammedan  should  not  have  the  advantages 
of  the  best  modern  training.  His  efforts — long  impeded 
by  his  co-religionists,  and  even  viewed  askance  by  many 
Englishmen — culminated  in  the  establishment  of  a  first- 
rate  school  and  college  for  the  education  of  Moham- 
medans at  Aligarh  in  the  United  Provinces.  This  is  in 
some  respects  the  finest  educational  institution  in  India. 
I  do  not  know  that  a  much  better  one  is  to  be  found  in 
England. 

It  is  worth  while  to  go  to  Aligarh,  if  only  to  have 
your  convictions  disturbed,  and  your  belief  in  the  ineradi- 
cable differences  between  East  and  West  a  little  shaken. 
The  time  I  spent  at  Aligarh  (I  took  care  not  to  visit  it 
when  the  Royal  party  went  there,  wishing  to  see  the 
college  under  its  normal  everyday  aspect)  I  found 
extremely  instructive  and  a  trifle  bewildering.     The  town 


ISLAM   AND  ITS   CHILDREN  283 

is  an  interesting  old  place,  with  a  fine  fort  and  a  pictur- 
esque mosque,  and  a  Hindu  tank  with  tame  monkeys 
swarming  about  it ;  and  the  bazaar  seemed  to  me  the 
cleanest  and  best  kept  of  any  I  had  seen  in  India.  The 
Civil  Station  outside  the  city  is  clean  and  neat,  too,  with 
nice  wide  roads,  and  bungalows  set  back  in  suburban- 
looking  gardens  and  avenues  of  fine  trees.  Everything  is 
trim  and  orderly  and  quiet ;  there  is  an  academic,  almost 
an  ecclesiastical,  feeling  in  the  air  ;  a  bishop  in  his  gaiters 
would  scarcely  seem  out  of  place  here. 

Sir  Syed  Ahmed's  foundation  is  so  closely  modelled  on 
Western  lines  that  you  find  it  hard  to  believe,  as  you  go 
round  the  buildings  and  courts  with  the  Principal,  that 
you  are  not  back  in  the  old  country,  with  a  cathedral 
spire  or  a  castle  keep  somewhere  in  the  background.  The 
establishment  is  carried  on  under  English  direction.  The 
Principal,  Mr.  W.  A.  Archbold,  who  has  succeeded  those 
famous  Indian  educationists,  Mr.  Theodore  Morison 
and  Mr.  Theodore  Beck,  is  a  distinguished  Cambridge 
graduate.  English  university  men,  too,  are  the  professors 
and  the  headmaster  of  the  school,  with  native  graduates 
of  Indian  universities  to  assist  them. 

The  small  dormitories,  in  which  the  students  live,  are 
built  round  large  quadrangles  like  those  of  an  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  college.  There  are  lecture-rooms,  with  forms 
and  desks,  and  a  great  dining-hall,  and  cricket-grounds,  and 
football-fields,  and  tennis-courts.  In  one  corner  of  the 
great  court  there  is  the  mosque,  which  might  be  the 
college  chapel,  where  the  students  are  expected  to  attend 
prayers  daily ;  and  I  suppose  they  are  taken  to  task  by 
their  tutors  if  they  fail  to  put  in  the  statutory  number  of 
attendances. 

We  go  into  one  of  the  students'  rooms.  In  defer- 
ence to  the  Indian  climate  it  has  '  chicks  •  before  the 
doors  and  windows,  and  whitewash,  or  distemper,  instead 


284  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

of  paper  on  the  walls ;  and  the  furniture  is  scanty,  as  it 
always  is  in  India.  But  the  apartment  bears  a  quite 
colourable  resemblance  to  a  study  at  an  English  public 
school,  or  even  an  undergraduate's  abode,  say  at  Selwyn 
or  Keble.  There  is  the  student's  bed  on  one  side,  his 
table  on  the  other.  His  shelf  of  books  hangs  against  the 
wall,  and  upon  it  you  may  note  Stubbs's  Constitutional 
History,  Mill's  Political  Economy,  perhaps  a  Cambridge 
Euclid  and  Algebra,  as  well  as  a  Persian  and  Arabic 
Grammar.  In  one  corner  there  is  a  stand  of  hockey- 
sticks  ;  in  another  a  cricket-bat  and  some  Indian  clubs, 
with  a  pair  of  boxing-gloves;  on  one  wall  pictures  of 
the  King  and  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  a  highly  coloured 
chromo  of  Windsor  Castle,  and  a  photograph  of  the 
members  of  the  First  Eleven  in  their  caps  and  flannels. 

Athletics  are  much  cultivated  at  Aligarh.  They  have 
excellent  football  and  hockey  teams,  and  their  cricket  is 
pretty  nearly  the  best  in  India,  which  is  saying  a  good 
deal.  Cricket,  during  the  last  few  years,  has  caught  on 
throughout  the  Peninsula,  and  is  played  by  the  natives  all 
over  the  country  with  the  utmost  zest  and  considerable 
skill.  In  fact,  it  is  now  almost  a  native  game,  the  Anglo- 
Indian  being  more  inclined  to  devote  himself  to  polo  and 
hockey.  This  is  partly  because  the  latter  games  are  less 
dilatory  and  provide  more  exercise  with  a  smaller  expen- 
diture of  time.  But  I  believe  the  waning  interest  in 
cricket  among  the  white  community  is  also  due  to  a 
consciousness  that  the  natives  are  playing  it  so  well 
that  matches  with  them  are  not  altogether  satisfactory,  to 
the  ruling  race.  There  are  certainly  not  many  regimental 
or  other  cricket-clubs  in  India  which  could  engage  the 
Aligarh  boys  with  any  confidence. 

I  got  into  conversation  with  a  member  of  the  cricket 
eleven,  and  in  two  minutes  I  forgot  that  he  was  an  Indian. 
He  talked  of  the  game,  of  the  matches  they  had  won  and 


ISLAM  AND  ITS  CHILDREN  285 

lost,  of  the  prospective  arrangements  for  the  next  season, 
of  football  and  the  Australians,  of  pig-sticking  and  shoot- 
ing, of  which  he  had  done  a  little  in  the  holidays  with 
'  his  people,'  and  something  also  of  his  books  and  studies 
and  approaching  examinations.  He  had  the  manner,  the 
tone,  the  expression,  of  a  gentlemanly,  well-set,  healthy 
English  lad ;  he  might  have  been  a  sunburnt  prefect  at 
Winchester,  the  captain  of  the  boat-club  at  Brasenose  or 
Trinity  Hall.  The  Principal  talked  to  the  lads  just  in 
the  frank,  kindly  way  adopted  by  those  headmasters  at 
home  who  happen  to  be  men  of  the  world  rather  than 
pedagogues  and  pedants.  '  I  treat  them  precisely  as  if 
they  were  English  boys,'  he  said,  '  and  often  I  find  it  an 
effort  to  remember  they  are  anything  else.'  He  told  me 
that  they  seemed  to  him  very  like  our  own  youngsters : 
intellectually  not  much  better  or  worse,  perhaps  with 
rather  stronger  memories  and  slightly  less  capacity  for 
close  reasoning;  more  docile  and  obedient  and  easily 
managed ;  not,  as  a  rule,  more  devoted  to  study  or  less 
addicted  to  play. 

The  discipline  and  general  arrangement  of  the  college 
and  the  school  are  kept  on  the  English  lines  so  far  as  is 
compatible  with  a  due  regard  for  the  social  traditions  of 
the  pupils  and  their  parents.  Some  of  these  young  gentle- 
men, it  must  be  remembered,  are  married  ;  most  will  re- 
turn to  homes  where,  of  course,  the  customs  of  the 
country  still  prevail.  It  would  not  do  to  send  them  back 
unable  to  eat  with  their  own  male  relatives.  So  they 
consume  native  food,  served  in  the  native  fashion  in 
the  dining-halls.  A  few  of  the  Anglicising  fathers  send 
their  boys  to  what  is  known  as  the  'English  House,' 
where  knives  and  forks  and  table-napkins  and  roast  beef 
and  boiled  potatoes  are  provided,  and  here  the  re- 
semblance to  a  boarding-house  at  one  of  our  public 
schools  is  very  close  indeed.     The  six  or  seven  hundred 


286  A  VISION  OF   INDIA 

young  followers  of  the  Prophet  at  Aligarh1  are  drawn 
from  a  good  many  divisions  of  the  Islamic  world.  In  a 
group  of  bright  youngsters  with  whom  I  foregathered 
there  was  a  light-coloured  Persian,  a  blue-eyed  Afghan,  a 
Burman  from  Kangoon,  an  ebon-cheeked  boy  from 
Hyderabad,  whose  father  was  an  officer  of  the  Nizam's 
1  Arabs,'  and  even  a  lad  from  Capetown,  the  son,  I  suppose, 
of  one  of  the  Malay  traders  settled  in  South  Africa.  The 
Aligarh  College  is  doing  a  work  comparable  mutatis 
mutandis  to  that  of  the  Ehodes  scholarships.  It  gets  to- 
gether the  picked  scions  of  Mohammedanism,  and  gives 
them  a  common  culture  and  common  associations.  Inci- 
dentally it  is  helping  to  bring  the  Indian  Mussulman 
gentry  out  of  their  seclusion,  and  qualifying  them  for  the 
professions  and  pursuits  of  active  modern  life. 

But  the  youth  who  goes  to  Aligarh  may  have  a  sister. 
She,  too,  sometimes  gets  educated  in  these  days.  She 
learns  Frerteh  and  music,  and  reads  English  novels. 
Then  in  due  course  she  is  married,  and  is  shut  up  for  life 
in  the  mitigated  captivity  of  the  zenana.  The  purdah  is 
a  much  more  rigorous  screen  for  the  woman  of  Islam 
than  for  her  Hindu  sister,  and  it  is  thrown  round  many, 
even  among  the  poorer  classes,  who,  if  they  were  of  the 
rival  faith,  would  be  allowed  to  escape  from  its  seclusion. 

There  are  bold  innovators  in  the  Moslem  community 
who  go  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  married  women,  in  these 
days,  might  be  treated  like  rational  human  beings,  and 
allowed  rather  more  liberty  than  is  given  to  habitual 
criminals  in  the  West.  And  there  are  even  one  or  two 
Mohammedan  families  of  high  rank  and  unquestioned 
orthodoxy  who  permit  their  ladies  to  go  about  unveiled 
and  to  talk  to  male  persons,  European  and  others.     But 

1  There  are  even  a  few  Hindus,  who  come  under  a  sort  of  conscience 
clause  and  are  allowed  to  obtain  the  educational  advantages  of  the  seminary 
without  being  subjected  to  the  religious  discipline  and  teaching. 


ISLAM  AND  ITS  CHILDREN  287 

in  this  respect  Mussulman  emancipation  moves  but 
slowly,  and  it  does  not  seem  that  any  substantial  progress 
is  being  made  in  modifying  the  domestic  arrangements 
which  form  the  real  barrier  against  genuine  intimacy 
between  ourselves  and  the  people  of  India.  It  is  difficult 
to  get  to  intimate  relations  with  a  married  man,  when 
you  will  never  be  permitted  to  see  his  wife,  and  may  not 
even  allude  to  her  in  the  course  of  conversation. 

Speaking  at  the  Imperial  Institute,1  Mr.  Theodore 
Morison,  who  was  for  sixteen  years  the  distinguished 
Principal  of  the  Aligarh  College,  ascribed  the  conser- 
vatism of  the  Indian  Mussulmans,  in  matters  of  social 
reform,  not  so  much  to  religious  fanaticism  as  to '  a  quasi- 
patriotic  feeling  of  which  they  themselves  were  only 
dimly  aware,  and  to  which  they  would  have  found  it 
difficult  to  give  articulate  expression.'  In  the  conflicts  of 
ages  the  Cross  and  the  Crescent  have  become  the  symbols 
not  merely  of  two  different  religions  (though  the  kindred 
origin  of  both  has  often  been  recognised  by  cultivated 
Mohammedans),  but  of  two  distinct  and  rival  social 
systems.  '  The  followers  of  both  religions,  being  habituated 
to  look  upon  each  other  as  natural  enemies,  had  em- 
phasised those  social  customs  in  which  they  differed  from 
each  other,  and  had  come  to  regard  with  peculiar  fondness 
those  habits  and  manners  which  might  be  reckoned  dis- 
tinctively Islamic  or  Christian.  Practices  which  were 
neither  good  nor  bad  in  themselves  became  lovable  and 
praiseworthy  when  they  were  recognised  characteristics  of 
the  followers  of  the  true  faith,  and  bigots  would  be  in- 
clined to  view  with  an  indulgent  eye  even  the  bad 
practices  of  their  own  people,  if  they  were  in  sharp 
contrast  to  the  manners  of  the  infidels.' 

1  In  a  very  interesting  lecture  delivered  before  the  National  Indian 
Association,  November  16, 1905,  of  which  a  report  is  given  in  the  Allahabad 
Pioneer,  December  8,  1905. 


288  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

The  mischief  of  this  was  so  strongly  felt  by  Sir  Syed 
Ahmed  that,  while  emphasising  his  strict  adhesion  to  all 
the  tenets  of  the  Islamic  faith,  he  made  public  renuncia- 
tion of  many  of  the  Mohammedan  customs,  for  which  he 
could  see  no  sufficient  cause,  and  ostentatiously  paraded 
his  liking  for  some  English  manners  and  habits.  'His 
impenitent  admiration  for  English  ways  while  he  was 
in  this  country  led  the  Doctors  of  the  Law  in  Delhi 
to  set  him  formally  under  a  ban,  as  a  Kafir  outside 
the  pale  of  Moslem  society,  and  for  a  long  time  his 
relatives  and  friends  dare  not  receive  him  into  their 
homes.  His  experience  was  shared  by  all  who  ventured 
to  adopt  European  customs.  When  Nawab  Mohsin-ul- 
Mulk  first  went  to  dinner  with  an  Englishman,  the  news 
was  telegraphed  to  his  native  city  and  spread  consterna- 
tion through  the  place.  On  his  return  home  none  of  his 
friends  came  to  meet  him  on  the  platform,  and  he  was 
followed  to  his  own  doors  by  an  angry  crowd  of  Mussul- 
mans. The  indignation  ran  so  high  that  when  his  son  died 
shortly  afterwards  not  a  Mohammedan  of  the  city  would 
accompany  the  bier  to  the  grave.' 

It  was  amazing,  added  Mr.  Morison,  to  observe  how 
much  heat  could  still  be  generated  by  such  apparently 
trivial  questions  as  the  length  of  the  trousers  a  true 
believer  should  wear,  the  cut  of  his  moustache,  or  the 
shaving  of  his  beard.  'With  a  sort  of  inarticulate 
patriotism,  the  old-fashioned  party  were  struggling  to 
preserve  the  existence  of  their  particular  civilisation.' 
Mr.  Morison  thought  that  '  the  struggle  had  terminated 
in  favour  of  the  Anglicising  party.  Islamic  civilisation 
had  gone  ;  the  old  mode  of  Mohammedan  life  had  been 
broken  up,  and  the  most  vigorous  spirits  in  the  com- 
munity were  inspired  by  European  ideals.'  One  would 
not  differ  from  so  high  an  authority  without  hesitation ; 
but  I  am   afraid    Mr.    Morison' s  view  is  a  little  too 


ISLAM  AND  ITS  CHILDREN  289 

sanguine.  The  struggle  between  the  New  School  and 
the  Old  School  of  Indian  Mohammedanism  has  not  yet 
terminated  decisively  in  favour  of  the  former,  nor  is  it 
rendered  less  acute  by  the  fact  that  it  does  seem  to  turn 
partly  upon  theological  differences.1  Social  reform  is 
hampered  by  the  fact  that  the  dead- weight  of  an  intole- 
rant priesthood  is  against  it,  and  the  Moslem  is  even 
more  under  the  influence  of  the  moulvie  than  the  Hindu 
is  subject  to  that  of  the  guru. 

Withal,  as  I  have  said,  there  is  conspicuous  progress, 
and  this  not  merely  among  the  superior  classes,  who  are 
getting  their  sons  educated  in  the  learning  of  the  West 
so  that  they  may  become  magistrates,  lawyers,  civil 
servants,  engineers,  and  doctors.  The  movement  is  ex- 
tending downwards,  and  the  Mohammedan  of  the  peasant 
and  labouring  orders  is  finding  his  way  into  the  industrial 
army.  Discussing  the  subject  with  some  of  the  leading 
employers   of   Cawnpore,   I   was   much   struck  by  their 

1  Some  interesting  comments  upon  Mr.  Morison's  lecture  were  made  by 
Mr.  Yusuf  Ali,  an  accomplished  Mohammedan  official  of  the  Indian  Civil 
Service  :  '  Change  of  customs  was  a  contributory  cause  of  the  bitterness  with 
which  Sir  Syed  Ahmed  was  assailed,  but  the  main  reason  was  on  account 
of  his  theological  views.  It  was  because  Sir  Syed  adopted  opinions  which 
were  in  the  eyes  of  many  Mohammedans  absolutely  heretical  if  not  anti- 
Moslem  that  their  great  hatred  of  him  arose.  When  he  was  last  in  Lucknow 
he  said  to  a  moulvie  connected  with  the  most  pronounced  of  anti-Aligarh 
organisations,  "  Why  is  it  you  and  your  party  so  strongly  object  to  English 
education?"  He  replied,  "We  don't  object  to  English  education,  or  to 
your  wearing  European  clothes.  What  we  do  object  to  is  that  you  learn 
natural  theology;  that  you  try  to  interpret  the  Koran  in  ways  that  we 
cannot  follow  ;  that  you  throw  aside  the  authority  of  the  commentators, 
and  take  your  stand  upon  the  text  as  interpreted  by  your  own  intelligence." 
That  expression  explained  the  line  of  cleavage  between  the  Aligarh  School 
and  the  Old  School.  This  cleavage  had  existed  in  the  history  of  other 
religions  of  the  world,  and  certainly  in  Christianity.  He  believed  that  the 
first  great  movement  which  gave  rise  to  the  Reformation  arose  from  the 
claim  of  a  small  minority  of  devout  men  to  exercise  the  right  of  private 
judgment,  instead  of  accepting  without  question  the  authority,  on  questions 
of  doctrine  and  practice,  of  the  Fathers.  The  reform  party  in  Islam  took 
a  like  position ;  and  when  this  view  generally  prevailed  Western  civilisation 
and  culture  would  be  accepted  by  Mohammedans,  to  the  working  out  of 
those  human  laws  of  culture  and  development  which  they  in  early  times  did 
so  much  to  cultivate.' 


290  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

testimony  to  the  increase  in  the  number  of  the  Mussul- 
man workers.  ■  When  I  first  came  here,  fifteen  years 
ago,'  said  the  manager  of  one  large  establishment,  '  there 
was  not  more  than  one  Mohammedan  in  our  factories  to 
five  Hindus ;  now  the  proportion  is  at  least  fifty  per  cent.' 
I  asked  if  the  Children  of  Islam  gave  satisfaction.  I  was 
told  that  they  did  ;  that  they  were  getting  the  better  jobs 
assigned  to  them,  and  earning  higher  wages.  It  seemed 
to  be  admitted  that  for  the  posts  in  which  some  intel- 
lectual qualifications  were  required  it  was  still  necessary 
to  resort  to  the  Hindus ;  though  that,  perhaps,  was  mainly 
because  it  was  so  much  easier  to  find  men  with  educa- 
tional advantages  in  that  community. 

But  (although  there  was  some  difference  of  opinion  on 
this  point)  my  informants  were  inclined  to  think  that, 
among  the  rank  and  file  of  the  workmen,  the  Moham- 
medans showed  a  higher  efficiency.  They  have  more 
grit,  more  energy,  more  endurance,  and  more  physical 
vigour ;  they  need  less  constant  supervision ;  and  they  are 
easier  to  deal  with  because  they  are  free  from  the  burden- 
some caste  rules.  They  are,  however,  somewhat  less 
industrious,  and  not  so  careful  in  attention  to  detail, 
whether  as  artisans  or  as  cultivators.  When  I  was  going 
through  a  section  of  rural  country,  in  which  Jat  and 
Mohammedan  villages  were  sandwiched  in  together,  I 
soon  found  it  easy  to  distinguish  one  from  the  other  by 
the  mere  appearance  of  the  lands  ;  for  the  Moslem  farms 
were  usually  worse  tilled  and  more  slovenly  than  those  of 
the  Hindus.  Besides,  the  Jat  cultivator  can  get  his 
womankind  to  help  him  in  the  fields  as  well  as  the 
factory,  while  his  rival  has  no  such  assistance.  In  this 
respect,  as  in  others,  the  '  peculiar  institution '  of  the 
Moslems  handicaps  them  in  the  competition  of  modern 
industrialism. 


291 


CHAPTEE  XX 

THE  DISTRICT  OFFICER 

Let  us  suppose,  by  a  long  stretch  of  fancy,  that  we  are 
living  in  the  year  2106,  and  that  the  Japanese,  taking 
advantage  of  the  dissensions  and  divisions  among  the 
Western  nations,  have  become  the  masters  of  the  greater 
part  of  Europe,  including  the  British  Isles.  Let  us 
conceive  ourselves  in  Wales  at  this  hypothetical  period. 
The  Principality  is  inhabited  by  two  and  a-half  millions 
of  people,  speaking  Welsh  and  English,  as  they  do  to-day. 
There  are  schools  for  both  races  just  as  there  are  at 
present,  there  are  newspapers  in  the  two  languages,  there 
are  landowners  of  Norman  blood  drawing  their  rents  from 
Celtic  tenant  farmers;  there  are  Methodist  ministers, 
Church  of  England  parsons,  and  an  Anglican  bishop 
still  enjoying  the  modest  revenues  of  St.  Asaph ;  there 
are  tax-collectors  and  revenue  officers,  not  distinguish- 
able from  those  who  are  even  now  discharging  their 
honourable  functions ;  Welsh  and  English  judges  will  be 
deciding  cases  in  the  local  courts,  barristers  and  attorneys, 
mostly  Welsh,  will  be  arguing  before  them  ;  Welsh  miners 
will  be  hewing  coal  in  the  Rhondda  Valley ;  enterprising 
financiers  from  London  will  be  making  money  out  of  the 
ores  of  Swansea  and  the  cargoes  of  Cardiff. 

There  might  be  a  Japanese  regiment  at  Chester,  and  a 
cruiser  flying  the  chrysanthemum  flag  acting  as  guardship 
off  the  Severn.  But  beyond  a  few  traders  there  are  no 
Japanese  residents  at  all,  save  and  except  a  Mr.  Hayashi 

u2 


292  A  VISION   OF   INDIA 

or  a  Mr.  Inaga,  who  is  the  principal  administrative  officer 
of  the  province,  with  a  couple  of  young  Japanese  assist- 
ants, a  Japanese  police-commandant,  and  a  Japanese 
chief  judge.  Imagine,  further,  Mr.  Hayashi  or  Mr.  Inaga 
ruling  from  an  extremely  modest  country-house  some- 
where in  the  mountain  valleys,  and  assume  that  he  has 
no  Parliament  or  local  Assembly  to  control  him,  but  re- 
ceives his  orders  direct  from  the  Mikado's  Cabinet  at 
Tokio,  or  from  a  Japanese  *  Government  of  Europe,'  with 
its  seat  at  Berlin  or  Vienna.  Imagine  all  this,  and  you  get 
something  like  the  miraculous  condition  of  things  which 
prevails  in  British  India  at  this  moment  of  writing. 

And  if  anyone  says  that  this  is  a  mere  fancy  picture,  I 
can  direct  him  to  a  district  in  Southern  India  which  is 
not  much  smaller  than  Wales  ;  where  the  inhabitants  are 
of  two  races  as  different  from  ourselves  as  either  English- 
men or  Welshmen  are  from  Japanese,  with  their  temples, 
their  priests,  their  religious  systems,  their  schools,  their 
vernacular  newspapers,  with  all  which  things  we  prac- 
tically do  not  interfere  at  all ;  where  there  is  no  British 
military  force  within  a  much  greater  distance  than  that 
which  separates  Chester  from  St.  David's  Head ;  where 
all  the  police,  the  revenue  collectors,  the  minor  civil 
officials,  and  the  subordinate  judges  are  natives  of 
India  ;  and  where  there  are  not  more  than  half  a  dozen 
Europeans,  all  told,  to  assist  the  English  gentleman,  who 
has  a  chuprassi  or  two  and  a  few  policemen  about  him 
as  the  only  external  signs  of  that  authority  under  which 
the  entire  district  rests.  He  is  thirty-six  years  of  age ;  he 
draws  about  the  salary  of  a  county-court  judge  at  home  ; 
he  lives  in  a  bungalow,  which  looks  shabby  compared 
with  that  of  the  adjacent  wealthy  native  landowner  ;  and 
he  takes  his  instructions  from  a  centre  of  government 
which  he  can  only  reach  after  a  day  and  a  night  of  un- 
interrupted rapid  travel. 


THE   DISTRICT  OFFICER  293 

Those  who  think  that  India  is  a  country  in  which  a 
*  horde  '  of  foreign  officials  batten  upon  the  natives  should 
look  at  the  actual  figures.  They  will  find  that  the 
horde  is  one  of  amazing  smallness.  It  is  hard  to 
believe  when  out  of  India — it  is  harder  to  believe  when 
there — that  the  Indian  Civil  Service  comprises  little  more 
than  a  thousand  persons.  '  Including  military  officers  in 
civil  employ,  and  others,'  says  Sir  John  Strachey,  '  about 
1,200  Englishmen  are  employed  in  the  civil  government 
of  232  millions  of  people,  and  in  the  partial  control  of  62 
millions  more.'  On  the  average  there  are  only  four 
members  of  the  ruling  race  for  every  million  of  its 
subjects. 

Bureaucratic  administration  has  surely  never  been 
exercised  with  a  stricter  economy  in  the  higher  grades  of 
service.  We  might  have  filled  India  with  a  swarm  of 
officials  of  our  own  blood,  conferring  upon  them  every 
place  of  any  importance  in  all  the  departments.  But 
we  use  our  Englishman  in  India  with  parsimonious 
thrift.  We  engage  him  only  for  a  few  superior  posts, 
leaving  him  to  conduct  the  actual  management  of  the 
country,  its  revenue  system,  its  defence,  its  finances,  its 
police,  its  justice,  by  means  of  an  army  of  natives.  India 
is  a  government  of  Indians  under  British  direction.  To 
understand  what  that  means  in  practice  you  need  to  go 
out  into  a  rural  district,  where  you  may  see  the  provincial 
ruler  at  work,  with  perhaps  two  European  assistants, 
perhaps  one,  and  a  whole  corps  of  native  subordinates. 

The  unit  of  Indian  administration  is  the  District ;  and 
the  important  individual  is  its  chief,  the  District  Magis- 
trate, the  Collector  as  he  is  called  in  some  provinces,  the 
Deputy-Commissioner  in  others.  He  is  the  regimental 
officer  of  the  Indian  service ;  and  on  him,  much  more  than 
on  Lieutenant-Governors  and  Members  of  Council,  and 
even  Viceroys,  the  efficiency  of  the  whole  vast  machine 


294  A   VISION  OF   INDIA 

depends.  He  tramps  through  the  mud  and  does  the  hard 
work,  lives  in  camp  most  of  the  winter,  fries  and  bakes 
in  the  summer,  and  simmers  and  stews  during  the  rains. 
The  Councils  and  the  Secretariats  escape  to  Simla  or 
Ootacamund,  or  some  other  pleasant  hill-station,  to  carry- 
on  their  intellectual  labours  through  the  hot  season  ; 
but  the  Head  of  the  District  works  away  on  the  plains, 
except  when  he  is  fortunate  enough  to  be  absent  on 
leave. 

Within  his  own  area  of  jurisdiction,  which  may  be  as 
large  as  Kent  or  Yorkshire,  or  larger  still,  the  Collector 
is  a  monarch,  rather  of  the  personal  than  the  constitu- 
tional type.  He  is  himself  responsible  for  the  behaviour 
of  his  million  or  so  of  subjects ;  he  has  to  see  that  the 
laws  are  carried  out,  that  the  police  do  their  duty,  that  the 
revenue  is  punctually  gathered  in  ;  to  supervise  his  string 
of  native  deputy-collectors,  assistant-commissioners,  teh- 
sildars,  naibs,  patwaris,  and  the  rest,  down  to  the  village 
headmen.  Prisons,  schools,  roads,  railways,  canals,  dis- 
pensaries, famine,  plague,  epidemics,  the  state  of  the  farms, 
the  progress  of  trade  and  commerce,  the  social  condition 
of  the  people — in  all  these  he  is  constantly  and  prac- 
tically interested.  He  is  to  some  extent  judge  as  well  as 
governor ;  he  should  be  a  lawyer  as  well  as  an  adminis- 
trator and  accountant ;  and  he  ought  to  know  something 
of  land  surveying,  of  irrigation,  of  agriculture  and  stock- 
breeding,  of  sanitary  science  and  engineering.  And  on 
all  these  subjects  and  many  others  he  must  be  prepared, 
at  short  notice,  to  write  reports  and  memoranda  with 
fluency  and  knowledge. 

To  his  people  the  District  Officer  is  the  Government 
in  corporeal  form.  For  the  villager,  Parliament,  the 
Cabinet,  the  Secretary  of  State,  have  no  existence ;  the 
King-Emperor  is  a  dim  mysterious  Shape  in  another 
planet ;   the  Great  Lord  Sahib  and  the  Governor  are  far- 


THE   DISTRICT   OFFICER  295 

away  inaccessible  potencies ;  even  the  Commissioner  is 
too  remote.  But  the  Head  of  the  District  they  know ; 
they  see  him  in  the  flesh  when  he  goes  his  rounds  in  the 
camping  season,  or  when  they  attend  at  his  cutcherry  to 
proffer  a  petition. 

The  aspiring  small  landowner,  who  thinks  that  his 
family  importance  entitles  him  to  be  placed  on  the  pro- 
vincial durbar  list,  the  official  who  believes  that  he  has 
been  unjustly  denied  his  promotion,  the  tradesman  who 
hopes  for  a  Government  contract,  the  village  headman 
who  has  a  complaint  to  make  against  the  Public  Works 
Department  for  an  insufficient  supply  of  irrigation  water 
— all  these  and  many  others  appeal  in  writing  or  by  word 
of  mouth  to  the  Huzur,  the  Presence,  who  is  to  them 
the  personal  representative  of  the  beneficently  despotic 
Sirkar.  He  sits  outside  his  tent,  or  on  his  verandah,  or 
in  his  dusty  little  office,  and  hears,  judges,  condemns, 
admonishes,  awards  praise  or  punishment,  makes  notes, 
reproves  the  petitioners,  or  promises  to  have  their  cases 
further  considered.  It  is  government  as  they  understand 
it  in  the  East :  the  Cadi  under  the  Palm-tree,  with  modern 
improvements. 

And  the  Cadi  for  the  most  part  is  no  more  than  a  very 
average,  fairly  well-educated,  intelligent,  conscientious 
Briton.  He  is  not,  of  course,  as  a  rule  either  a  genius  or 
a  hero.  Some  people  write  of  him  as  if  he  were  neces- 
sarily both.  The  visitor  to  India,  with  his  literary  and 
historical  recollections  thick  upon  him,  may  confess  to  a 
faint  feeling  of  disappointment  when  he  comes  in  due 
course  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  rulers  of  the  land 
in  situ.  I  suppose  the  race  of  the  Lawrences,  the  Herbert 
Edwardeses,  the  Nicholsons,  the  Taylors,  the  Sleemans, 
is  not  extinct.  But  the  ordinary  civilian,  as  you  meet 
him,  though  an  excellent  fellow,  does  not  perhaps  strike 
you  as  the  silent,  strong  man,  masterful  but  kindly,  self- 


296  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

devoted  yet  unbending,  for  whom  you  have  been  vaguely 
and  rather  foolishly  looking. 

Such  men  there  are,  such  you  will  even  find  in 
the  course  of  a  hasty  peregrination.  But  the  majority 
are  quite  ordinary  persons,  much  like  their  fathers,  their 
brothers,  and  their  cousins,  in  rectories,  college  common- 
rooms,  and  public  offices  at  home.  For  myself,  I  confess 
that  the  young  civilian  fell  a  little  below  my  expecta- 
tions, just  as  the  young  officer  of  the  native  army,  and 
even  the  young  police-superintendent,  rose  rather  above 
them. 

One  has  been  taught  to  believe  the  soldier  '  stupid/  the 
policeman  perfunctory ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  in  brains 
and  character  they  rank  far  behind  the  competition-wallah. 
A  man  may  pass  a  moderately  stiff  examination,  and 
write  I.C.S.  after  his  name,  without  changing  his  nature. 
The  civilian  has  the  ordinary  faults,  the  ordinary  virtues. 
His  outlook  is  often  limited;  he  is  sometimes  pedantic, 
conceited,  and  too  complacently  official.  But  he  belongs 
to  a  service  which  brings  out  some  of  his  best  qualities 
and  mitigates  his  worst — a  service  which  has  a  tradition 
of  hard  work,  self-reliance,  and  absolute,  irrefragable, 
untainted  integrity. 

And  the  training  of  the  District  is  like  that  of  his 
Majesty's  ships :  it  makes  or  breaks  the  individual  sub- 
jected to  it.  If  the  young  civilian  is  gifted  with  some 
elements  of  strength  and  resourcefulness,  if  he  has  his 
share  of  tact  and  judgment  and  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  he  is  developed  and  improved  by  the  splendid  re- 
sponsibilities of  the  magistracy,  till  he  is  fit  for  even 
greater  things.  But  if  not,  he  is  quietly  removed  from 
the  executive  deck,  and  sent  to  office  work  in  the  Secre- 
tariat, or  turned  into  a  Sessions  Judge,  or  provided  with 
some  other  employment,  in  which  industrious  steadiness 
may  compensate  for  some  lack  of  decision  and  temper 


- 


AT    THE    DISTRICT    MAGISTRATE'S    TENT. 


THE  DISTKICT  OFFICER  297 

and  the  capacity  to  deal  with  men  and  cope  with  unfore- 
seen emergencies. 

But  are  the  Indian  administrators  of  our  time  better 
or  worse  than  their  predecessors  ?  How  do  they  compare 
with  the  men  of  the  pre-Mutiny  and  pre-competition  days 
and  with  those  who  inherited  the  traditions  of  that 
period  ?  These  are  questions  to  which  diverse  answers 
will  be  given,  and  on  them  it  is  not  easy  to  come  to  a 
definite  conclusion. 

Some  of  the  older  generation  of  officials  are  altogether 
unfavourable  to  the  men  of  the  new  order.  In  Anglo- 
Indian  society  and  in  the  Indian  clubs  there  are  dolorous 
headshakings  over  the  social  shortcomings  of  the  younger 
civilians.  Many  of  them,  it  is  whispered,  are  not  •  gentle- 
men,' but  only  clever  lads  who  have  worked  their  way  up, 
with  scholarships  and  exhibitions,  from  the  board-schools 
and  grammar-schools  to  the  Universities  and  the  high 
places  on  the  Civil  Service  Commissioners'  list.  '  Why, 
sir,  the  son  of  my  father's  gamekeeper  is  Collector  of  my 
old  district,'  says  the  indignant  veteran ;  and  you  are 
bidden  to  observe  that  the  natives  have  the  keenest  eye 
for  social  distinctions  :  they  know  one  kind  of  sahib  from 
another,  and  they  dislike  rulers  of  plebeian  origin. 

But  in  these  democratic  days  the  gamekeeper's  son 
has  *  come  to  stay  ' ;  and  if,  besides  having  the  ability  and 
energy  to  pass  high  in  the  examination,  he  also  happens 
to  have  rowed  in  his  college  boat  or  to  have  got  his  Blue 
— if  he  is  a  good  sportsman  and  a  good  fellow,  manly, 
capable,  and  well-mannered — it  is  possible  that  even  the 
astute  Oriental  may  not  detect  these  disabilities  of  birth, 
or  may  condone  them  if  he  does.  So  far  it  does  not  seem 
that  the  new  system  has  filled  the  I.C.S.  with  '  bounders ' 
or  weaklings  or  with  persons  too  unpolished  to  hold  their 
own  in  the  cultured  society  of  an  Indian  cantonment. 
It  is  also  alleged   that   the  latter-day  civilians  know 


298  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

less  of  native  life  and  the  condition  of  the  country  than 
their  forerunners ;  one  is  often  told  that  they  are  not 
nearly  so  well  acquainted  with  the  vernacular.  But  the 
suggestion  is  probably  quite  unwarranted.  The  older 
civilian  had  a  rough  knowledge  of  the  colloquial  speech 
of  his  province,  picked  up  from  his  servants  and  his 
native  subordinates ;  but  he  had  seldom  studied  the 
language  accurately  and  grammatically  as  the  young 
officials  and  officers  are  now  compelled  to  do. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  daresay  it  is  true  that  the  man 
of  the  past  was  better  acquainted  with  his  district  and 
its  people.  Facilities  of  communication,  here  as  every- 
where else,  have  worked  their  effects.  The  official  of  the 
days  when  John  Company  Bahadur  ruled,  and  long  after, 
was  more  closely  rooted  to  the  soil  of  Asia  than  his  suc- 
cessor. The  voyage  to  Europe  was  long  and  costly  ;  the 
civilian  did  not  look  forward  to  taking  it  more  than 
once  or  twice  during  his  whole  term  of  service.  India 
was  his  home ;  and  he  knew  that  if  he  did  not  leave  his 
bones  there  he  would  at  any  rate  not  often  get  away  from 
the  country,  until  he  left  it  for  ever  after  thirty  or  forty 
years  of  almost  continuous  residence  in  the  East. 

Here  there  has  been  a  great  change.  In  these  times, 
when  the  voyage  is  an  affair  of  a  fortnight,  people  are 
constantly  taking  it.  Anglo-India  is  always  on  the  move, 
flitting  backwards  and  forwards.  Many  of  the  ladies  get 
home  every  season ;  plenty  of  the  men  can  contrive  a 
holiday  in  England — or  in  France,  Italy,  or  Switzerland 
— once  in  about  three  years.  Europe  is  no  longer  a 
remote  region,  from  which  only  faint  echoes  reach  the 
exile.  Modern  Indian  society  is  closely  in  touch  with  the 
West ;  it  has  read  the  new  books,  seen  the  new  plays, 
kept  itself  well  in  the  current  of  politics,  sport,  and 
amusement. 

The  change  is  in  many  ways  beneficial.     The  Anglo- 


THE  DISTRICT  OFFICER  299 

Indian  is,  physically  and  morally,  the  healthier  for  it.  It 
saves  his  liver,  and  keeps  him  from  sinking  down  into  the 
crude  provincialism  which  Thackeray  drew  with  savage 
veracity  in  the  person  of  Jos  Sedley.  The  original  of  the 
Collector  of  Boggleywallah  exists  no  longer ;  nor  the 
official  who  made  himself  so  much  at  home  in  India  that 
he  provided  himself  with  feminine  companionship  of  indi- 
genous growth.  In  the  compounds  of  many  of  the  old- 
time  bungalows  you  will  see  a  little  whitewashed  annexe 
or  garden-house,  wherein  the  Sahib  was  wont  to  relax, 
after  his  daily  labours,  in  true  Oriental  fashion.  No  such 
indecorous  arrangement  would  be  tolerated  in  a  modern 
cantonment  or  civil  station.  But  the  newer  system  is 
not  without  some  disadvantages  of  its  own.  The  Anglo- 
Indian  is  thinking  *  Europe  '  all  the  time ;  and  even  the 
civilian  is  a  lodger,  a  mere  transient  visitor,  in  his  district, 
who  will  not  stay  in  it  long  enough  to  know  it  with  the 
ancient  intimacy.  Something  has  had  to  be  paid  for  the 
swift  steamers,  the  rapid  mails,  the  telegrams,  the  railways 
to  the  hills,  the  frequent  holidays,  which  have  robbed  the 
life  of  the  Englishman  in  India  of  some  of  its  former 
terrors. 


300  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 


CHAPTER  XXI 
LIGHTS  AND  SHADOWS  OF  EXILE 

When  Tompkyns  Sahib  is  At  Home,  he  is  apt  to  assume 
the  airs  of  a  martyr.  He  may  succeed  in  persuading 
others,  and  he  honestly  tries  to  persuade  himself,  that  he 
does  not  like  India.  He  will  speak  of  it  as  the  Land  of 
Regrets,  and  justify  himself  by  referring  to  the  poets  : 

What  far-reaching  Nemesis  steered  him, 

From  his  home  by  the  cool  of  the  sea  ? 
When  he  left  the  fair  country  that  reared  him, 

When  he  left  her,  his  mother,  for  thee  ; 
That  restless,  disconsolate  worker, 

Who  strains  now  in  vain  at  thy  nets  ; 
0  sultry  and  sombre  Noverca, 

O  Land  of  Eegrets  ! 

He  asks  for  sympathy  on  the  ground  that  he  is  a  for- 
lorn exile,  living  afar  from  his  native  land,  in  a  deplorable 
climate,  among  an  alien,  semi-barbarous  people.  He  will 
contrast  the  amenities  of  life  in  England  with  the  condi- 
tions of  an  existence,  in  which  work  has  to  be  done  with 
babu  clerks  and  with  the  temperature  in  the  nineties  for 
eight  months  out  of  the  twelve.  The  intellectual  poverty 
of  a  society  without  theatres  or  even  a  music-hall  fur- 
nishes him  with  matter  for  indignant  comment.  All  the 
time  he  is  in  India  he  makes  a  serious  effort  to  imagine 
that  he  is  counting  the  hours  till  his  next  trip  to  Europe ; 
and  he  would  rather  like  to  believe  that  the  one  really 


LIGHTS  AND  SHADOWS   OF  EXILE  301 

agreeable  moment  of  his  joyless  sojourn  in  the  East  is  that 
in  which  he  sets  foot  on  the  tender  while  the  P.  and  0. 
liner  is  getting  up  steam  for  the  homeward  voyage  in 
Bombay  harbour.  And  when  the  time  comes  for  him  to 
leave  the  foggy  skies  and  mud-draggled  pavements  of  his 
native  land,  Tompkyns  is  heartily  sorry  for  himself,  and 
disappointed  if  he  does  not  obtain  a  reasonable  amount  of 
condolence,  particularly  from  the  feminine  members  of 
his  circle. 

Yet,  if  he  will  allow  himself  to  think  so,  he  has  some 
compensations.  Tompkyns  is  only  a  chota  sahib,  a  minor 
mercantile  personage,  neither  the  Collector  of  a  District 
nor  the  Colonel  of  a  Kegiment.  If  he  were  at  home  he 
would  be  in  a  bank  or  an  export  house  in  the  City,  as  his 
younger  brother  actually  is.  He  would  probably  live  in  a 
middle-class  suburb  and  go  down  to  his  work  every  morn- 
ing by  the  omnibus  or  the  District  Kail  way,  instead  of 
driving  to  his  office  in  a  neat  dog-cart,  behind  a  smart 
country-bred  pony,  with  a  syce  in  a  green  turban  balancing 
himself  on  the  step. 

Young  Tompkyns,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  resides  in 
Putney,  where  he  occupies  a  bedroom  and  a  sitting-room, 
with  a  somewhat  overworked  lodging-house  maidservant 
to  minister  to  his  wants.  This  lady  leaves  a  can  of 
lukewarm  water  at  his  door  in  the  morning,  and  Young 
Tompkyns  pours  it  himself  into  the  tin  pan  in  which  he 
performs  his  ablutions.  She  dumps  an  egg  or  a  rasher  of 
bacon  in  front  of  him  before  he  catches  the  8.45  train  up ; 
and  if  he  is  not  dining  out  she  is  able  to  furnish  him  with  a 
steak  and  some  potatoes  in  the  evening.  Young  Tompkyns 
is  not  without  his  relaxations.  A  few  people  ask  him  to 
dances  ;  he  goes  to  the  theatre  sometimes  with  a  friend ; 
he  practises  the  violin  in  his  rooms  and  joins  a  quartette 
party ;  on  Sunday  he  plays  his  round  or  two  of  golf.  He 
is  at  work  five  days  and  a-half  out  of  seven,  and  has  few 


302  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

extra  holidays,  beyond  his  annual  three  weeks,  when  he 
goes  to  the  seaside,  or  perhaps  takes  an  economical  trip 
to  the  Continent. 

A  perfectly  wholesome  and  not  unsatisfactory  existence, 
but  it  cannot  be  called  brilliant.  When  Tompkyns  Sahib 
is  more  than  usually  inclined  to  *  grouse,'  it  may  strike 
him  that  this  would  have  been  his  situation,  if  he  had  re- 
mained in  London  instead  of  getting  an  appointment  in 
the  country  he  asperses.  As  it  is,  he  enjoys  at  least  certain 
material  advantages  which  otherwise  might  have  been 
denied  him.  He  lives  not  in  modest  lodgings  or  a  cramped 
little  London  house,  but  in  a  roomy  bungalow.  He 
shares  this  abode,  it  is  true,  with  two  other  young  men ; 
but  each  tenant  of  the  chummery  has  his  own  spacious 
apartment,  and  there  is  a  sitting-room,  twenty  feet  square 
and  twenty  feet  high,  with  a  punkah  depending  from  the 
ceiling ;  also  there  is  a  dining-room  in  which  a  dinner  can 
be,  and  sometimes  is,  given  to  a  dozen  guests.  The 
windows  of  Young  Tompkyns  abut  upon  a  minute  back- 
yard and  the  cisterns  of  the  next  street.  But  the  dwelling 
of  Tompkyns  Sahib  is  in  a  compound,  which  is,  in  fact, 
a  small  estate,  such  as  Young  Tompkyns  is  not  likely  to 
occupy,  down  Putney  way,  until  some  time  after  he  has 
become  married  and  moneyed  and  middle-aged. 

When  Tompkyns  Sahib  steps  through  the  lattice  of 
his  sleeping-room,  in  the  early  morning,  stumbling  over 
the  punkah-man  asleep  by  the  sill,  he  comes  out  upon  a 
half -acre  of  lawn,  set  with  flower-beds.  In  the  height  of 
the  hot  season  it  is  baked  into  grey  dust ;  but  for  a  large 
part  of  the  year  the  bheesties  keep  the  turf  green  by  con- 
stant outpourings  from  leather  goat-skins  and  great  earthen 
jars,  and  the  gardeners,  impelled  by  much  tuition  and 
objurgation,  contrive  to  make  the  place  gay  with  asters 
and  chrysanthemums  and  sunflowers  and  bougainvilleas 
and  other  blossoms,  English  and  Indian.     You  sit  with 


LIGHTS  AND   SHADOWS  OF  EXILE  303 

Tompkyns,  under  the  shade  of  his  deep  verandah,  fringed 
with  the  tassels  of  the  wisteria  and  the  hibiscus,  and  from 
your  reposeful  arm-chair  you  look  out  upon  his  palms  and 
cactus-plants  and  the  arcades  of  a  mighty  banyan  or  the 
spreading  arms  of  a  great  mango -tree,  all  covered  by  the 
orange  and  purple  trumpets  of  the  climbing  bigonia; 
and  you  are  disposed  to  sympathise  with  the  Sahib  less 
cordially  than  when  you  listened  to  his  lamentations  At 
Home. 

Nobody  takes  any  particular  notice  of  Young  Tomp- 
kyns, who  is  but  an  inconspicuous  unit  in  a  crowd 
of  persons  no  more  distinguished  or  important  than 
himself.  Nor  is  there  any  real  distinction  attaching  to 
Tompkyns  Sahib.  Still  he  is  an  aristocrat — one  of,  per- 
haps, a  hundred  and  fifty  members  of  the  ruling  race  in  a 
community  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  He  moves 
and  has  his  being,  conscious  that  the  vast  majority  of 
the  people  about  him  are,  and  know  themselves  to  be, 
socially  his  inferiors. 

Young  Tompkyns  would  be  greatly  surprised  if  he 
were  respectfully  saluted  by  policemen  and  officials  and 
the  general  public  when  he  walked  or  drove  in  the 
streets ;  but  Tompkyns  Sahib  is  not  at  all  astonished 
at  these  tributes,  and  is  even  a  little  indignant  at  the 
4  infernal  cheek '  of  the  native  who  withholds  them,  a 
native,  perhaps,  as  well  educated  as  himself,  not  less  in- 
telligent, and  probably  ten  times  as  rich. 

Then  again  his  domestic  arrangements,  if  in  some 
respects  wanting  in  comfort,  imply  a  certain  assumption 
and  style  which  Young  Tompkyns  would  deem  quite 
unsuitable  for  his  station  in  life.  Across  the  lawn  of  his 
compound,  beyond  the  path  and  the  hedge  of  prickly  pear, 
you  catch  sight  of  certain  whitewashed  low  buildings, 
which  are  the  abodes  of  the  servants  and  the  stables  of 
the   horses.      Of    the   limited   establishment    of    Young 


304  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

Toinpkyns  something  has  been  said.  His  brother,  though 
a  bachelor  also,  requires  nevertheless  the  services  of  a 
considerable  number  of  attendants.  Some  sixteen  or 
eighteen  adult  males  constitute  the  regular  domestic 
staff  of  the  chummery,  not  to  mention  auxiliaries  like 
the  washerman  and  the  barber. 

Each  gentleman  has  his  own  '  boy,'  or  personal  valet, 
and  there  is  a  butler,  a  cook,  and  his  assistant,  table- 
servants,  water-carriers,  a  sweeper,  and  others.  Tomp- 
kyns  Sahib  begs  you  to  observe  that  all  these  menials 
do  no  more  work  than  a  quarter  of  their  number  in 
England.  But  if  he  were  in  England  he  would  not 
have  even  this  quota,  and  would  doubtless  find  himself 
dependent,  like  Young  Tompkyns,  on  a  single  unwilling 
female.  He  would  certainly  take  off  his  own  boots,  and 
put  the  studs  into  his  own  shirt,  and  do  various  things 
for  himself  which  now  involve  no  more  exertion  than  a 
brief  command  in  the  vernacular  to  somebody  lurking 
within  earshot  outside  a  partition  or  behind  a  curtain. 

Tompkyns  Sahib  keeps  his  own  horse,  with  its  own 
special  groom.  He  rides  every  morning,  before  driving  to 
his  office  in  his  pony-cart,  and  occasionally  he  can  get 
out  to  hunt  the  jackal.  He  is  also  proposing  to  buy 
another  pony  to  serve  him  in  the  game  of  polo.  Young 
Tompkyns,  when  he  rides  anything,  rides  a  bicycle;  he 
cannot  afford  to  keep  a  horse,  and  he  would  as  soon  think 
of  playing  polo  as  of  entering  for  the  Grand  National. 
But  all  Tompkyns  Sahib's  friends  have  horses,  as  they  all 
have  several  servants,  and  his  '  living  wage '  is  calculated 
in  accordance  with  this  circumstance. 

His  office  is  organised  with  due  regard  to  the 
exigencies  of  a  climate  in  which  an  European  cannot 
maintain  his  full  health  and  vigour  without  many  and 
frequent  holidays.  Every  three  or  four  years  Tompkyns 
Sahib  is  allowed  to  leave  the  work  to  his  colleagues,  and  to 


LIGHTS  AND   SHADOWS  OF  EXILE  305 

take  a  six  months'  or  an  eight  months'  vacation.  Young 
Tompkyns,  who  has  never  had  six  months'  holiday  in  his 
life,  is  inclined  to  envy  his  brother  these  prolonged  periods 
of  repose,  and  sometimes  he  wonders  whether  even  a  spell 
of  Indian  hot  seasons  would  be  too  heavy  a  price  to  pay 
for  them. 

It  is  a  cheerful  society  to  which  Tompkyns  Sahib 
belongs,  a  society  of  which  a  large  proportion  of  the 
members  are  young.  The  old  people  have  gone  home, 
and  if  they  are  wise  and  fortunate  they  went  before  age 
had  begun  to  lay  a  heavy  finger  upon  them.  India  is  not 
a  good  place  to  grow  old  in ;  even  late  middle-age  feels 
that  it  would  be  better  elsewhere.  To  enjoy  it,  you  should 
be  as  Tompkyns  Sahib  is — full  of  the  animal  spirits  of  youth 
and  its  delight  in  physical  exertion.  You  should  be  blithe 
and  lively  and  easily  amused,  and  whatever  underlying 
earnestness  you  may  possess  it  should  be  compatible  with 
a  certain  tolerance  of  frivolity,  a  capacity  for  enjoyment 
not  exclusively  intellectual,  and  that  lightness  of  heart 
which  is  proof  against  disturbing  shocks  and  depressing 
incidents. 

A  good  reserve  of  recuperative  buoyancy  is  needed, 
such  as  men  possess  who  pass  their  lives  on  ship- 
board, and  in  other  situations  where  a  shadow  of  sudden 
danger  and  possible  tragedy  lurks  always  in  the  back- 
ground. The  day's  work  must  be  done,  and  even  the 
day's  play  got  through,  though  your  partner  of  the  night 
before  is  down  with  fever  in  the  morning,  and  the  man 
you  jested  with  at  breakfast  is  dead  of  cholera  before 
dinner.  It  is  a  life  of  hasty  friendships,  hastily  broken  by 
death,  by  absence,  by  separation — a  life  in  which  nothing 
seems  very  permanent,  in  which  new  faces  drift  into  your 
sphere  and  drift  out,  in  which  the  rosebud  must  be  gathered 
before  it  fades  upon  the  bough,  and  the  passing  hour 
snatched  swiftly  because  it  passes  so  soon.     The  melan* 

x 


306  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

cholic,  reflective  temperament  is  not  suited  to  the  English- 
man in  India.  He  seems  sometimes  afraid  to  think  too 
much,  lest  he  should  unfit  himself  for  the  duties  cast  upon 
him  and  the  relaxations  which  render  them  tolerable. 

Tompkyns  Sahib  is  in  no  peril  of  being  sicklied  o'er  by 
the  pale  cast  of  thought.  He  is  otherwise  occupied.  He 
can  put  in  seven  hours  of  busy  labour  in  his  office  in  the 
hot  season,  when  the  place  is  like  a  furnace,  though  all 
the  shutters  are  closed  and  the  fans  humming,  and  even  the 
Eurasian  clerks  are  in  a  state  of  collapse  as  they  pant  and 
perspire  over  their  typewriters.  He  is  not  too  tired  for  a 
rattling  game  of  polo,  or  a  few  hard  sets  of  tennis,  under 
the  mitigated,  but  still  scorching,  blaze  of  the  afternoon 
sun.  Then  a  change  and  a  bath,  and  a  saunter  and  cool 
drinks  at  the  club,  or  perhaps  an  hour  of  bridge  before 
dinner. 

And  after  that  meal  there  may  be  a  dance,  into  which 
Tompkyns  throws  himself  with  zeal ;  and  though  he 
dances  every  valse,  except  those  which  he  sits  out,  and 
though  he  does  full  justice  to  the  supper  and  the  cham- 
pagne-cup somewhere  after  midnight,  he  is  able  to  be  up 
and  taking  his  morning  canter  at  daylight.  To  the  man 
who  has  health  and  energy  and  the  vigour  to  work  and 
flirt  and  dance  and  ride  and  shoot  and  play  indoor  and  out- 
door games,  all  with  equal  zest  and  enjoyment,  India  has  a 
good  deal  to  give  in  return  for  all  she  takes  away.  So 
Tompkyns  really  feels ;  and  when  he  is  at  home  he  misses 
the  spacious  freedom,  the  easy  society,  and  the  open-air 
recreations  of  his  banishment,  and  he  is  not  sorry,  when  all 
is  said,  to  find  himself  on  board  the  liner  heading  down 
the  Mediterranean  for  the  Bed  Sea  and  the  'Land  of 
Eegrets  '  once  more. 

But  the  sensation  tends  to  grow  weaker  with  each  suc- 
cessive holiday ;  and  as  the  years  pass  by,  and  Tompkyns 
Sahib   floats   towards   autumn,  his  plaints   become   less 


LIGHTS  AND   SHADOWS  OF  EXILE  307 

voluble,  but  more  sincere.  He  can  no  longer  take  it  out 
of  himself,  night  and  day,  with  the  old  impunity.  The 
games  and  sports,  and  even  the  dances,  have  lost  much  of 
their  attraction  ;  he  goes  on  with  them  steadily,  but  it  is 
with  an  effort ;  the  gossip  of  the  station,  the  chatter  of  the 
club,  bore  him,  and  the  burden  of  his  work  weighs  heavier. 
He  begins  to  develop  nerves  and  a  temper,  scolds  his 
subordinates,  and  bullies  his  attendants,  and  is  sick  of  the 
sight  of  anything  *  native.'  The  wet  lanes  of  England, 
the  pale  sunlight,  the  whistling  rains,  are  calling  him. 
He  would  give  his  tropical  garden,  his  bungalow,  his 
verandahs,  his  horses  and  carriages  and  many  servants, 
for  a  brick  box  in  a  suburban  street. 

When  an  Anglo-Indian  is  in  this  condition,  it  is  time 
he  left  his  place  to  some  younger  man,  who  will  come  out 
with  a  gay  heart  and  stout  limbs,  and  fling  himself  into 
the  life  of  India,  and  find  it  all  delightful,  as  his  prede- 
cessor did  once.  Tompkyns  Sahib  goes  home,  and  settles 
down  again  among  his  kindred,  and  the  East  sees  him  no 
more.  He  has  few  good  words  to  say  of  India ;  and  yet  he 
cannot  forget  it.  He  wonders  why  people  are  somehow  so 
different  from  what  they  were  when  he  left  them  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ago,  and  why  England  has  grown  so  much 
duller,  and,  above  all,  why  he  seems  so  much  older  than 
his  stay-at-home  brother,  who  is  now  in  the  full  flush  of 
a  vigorous  middle-age,  full  of  work  and  interests,  with 
no  thought  of  retirement  for  years  to  come.  So  it  may 
be  that  Young  Tompkyns  has  not  had  so  much  the  worst 
of  it  after  all. 

Whether  the  amenities  of  Indian  life  compensate  for 
its  limitations  is  a  point  on  which  the  returned  exile  is 
often  more  uncertain  than  when  he  was  in  his  place  of 
banishment.  It  is  not  easy  for  the  external  observer  to 
strike  the  balance ;    for  India  is  a  land  of  bewildering 

x2 


308  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

contrasts.  Eastern  opulence  and  Eastern  poverty  make 
an  antithesis  that  constantly  seizes  the  imagination.  The 
pride  of  life  is  before  you,  and  also  its  meanness  and 
degradation.  One  of  the  first  objects  that  caught  my 
attention  when  I  began  to  look  about  me  in  Bombay  was 
a  man  (he  was  a  retainer  or  attendant  of  one  of  the  native 
chiefs  who  had  come  into  the  city  to  receive  the  Prince 
of  Wales)  in  very  conspicuous  vesture.  His  head  was 
crowned  by  a  large  and  showy  turban,  folded  with  bands 
of  gold,  and  he  wore  a  robe  of  rose-tinted  satin,  with 
pendant  earrings  of  pearl,  and  a  necklace  of  amethysts 
and  emeralds.  But  when  I  looked  below  these  splendours 
I  found  them  supported  by  legs  in  frayed  cotton  pyjamas 
and  feet  shuffling  upon  old  carpet  slippers. 

When  I  came  to  know  more,  it  seemed  to  me  that  this 
figure  was  typical  of  India,  in  its  strange  mixture  of  pomp 
and  squalor,  of  gorgeousness  and  grime,  of  luxury  and 
discomfort,  of  gold  and  ashes,  of  ideal  beauty  and  naked 
realistic  wretchedness.  You  meet  the  conjunction  every- 
where ;  a  hundred  examples  leap  to  the  memory  even  of 
the  casual  wanderer  who  may  have  been  but  a  few  weeks 
or  months  in  Asia. 

At  Lahore,  for  instance,  I  was  passing  through  the 
*  broad  tree-planted  courtyard  of  the  Jamma  Masjid,  the 
mosque  of  Aurangzeb.  It  is  a  splendid  and  spacious 
example  of  the  later  Mohammedan  architecture,  degenerate 
but  still  beautiful.  The  fluted  lotus-shaped  domes  float 
like  water-lilies  upon  the  swelling  curves  of  the  smooth 
red-sandstone  arches.  But  in  the  sacred  court,  which 
the  unbeliever  may  not  enter  without  putting  felt  sandals 
over  his  shoes,  there  is  a  square  marble  cistern ;  and  at 
this  tank  I  saw  a  common  porter  or  coolie  washing  his 
face  and  feet  and  hands,  taking  the  holy  water  into  his 
mouth  and  throwing  it  back  into  the  fountain  stained  all 
red  with  the  juices  of  the  betel-nut  he  had  been  chewing. 


LIGHTS  AND   SHADOWS  OF  EXILE  309 

There  is  a  finer  Moslem  church  at  Lahore,  the  mosque 
of  Wazir  Khan,  hard  by  the  Delhi  Gate.  It  is  built  of 
brick,  inlaid  with  a  mosaic  of  blue  and  yellow  tiles,  blue 
and  yellow  as  pure  and  lucent  as  the  colours  on  a  plate  of 
early  Italian  faience.  The  deep-set  doorway  is  shimmering 
with  azure  light,  like  a  sea-cave,  and  above  are  traced  in 
blue,  on  a  white  ground,  some  sentences  in  that  bold  and 
flowing  Persian  script  which  is  a  decoration  in  itself : 
'  Kemove  your  heart  from  the  gardens  of  the  world.'  So 
Islam  holds  high  its  blazon  on  this  noble  banner.  But  in 
the  chauk  or  small  square,  on  which  the  gateway  opens, 
tin  pots  are  being  made,  street  traders  are  selling  common 
wares  for  farthings,  animals  are  tethered  against  the 
foundation-walls  of  the  temple,  and  rags  and  ordure  are 
on  its  very  steps. 

At  one  of  the  palaces  where  the  Prince  and  Princess 
of  Wales  were  entertained  to  a  sumptuous  banquet  by  a 
great  ruling  chief,  the  guests  were  received  in  a  shamiana, 
or  pavilion,  erected  before  the  open  entrance-hall.  The 
walls  of  the  tent  and  the  pillars  of  the  portico  were  draped 
in  gold  brocade,  and  wide  levels  of  this  same  fabric  were 
stretched  over  the  steps  and  pavements  of  the  courtyard. 
On  this  flooring  were  ranged  those  who  were  to  receive 
the  Royal  guests,  his  Highness  himself  with  half  the  value 
of  the  State  Treasury  on  his  person,  jewelled  and  silk-clad 
feudatories,  English  ladies  in  evening  dress,  laced  and 
uniformed  officials  and  officers.  The  Maharaja's  chobdars, 
big  men  in  blazing  liveries,  held  the  golden  fire-screen 
fans  and  the  silver  maces. 

As  we  waited  amid  all  this  splendour,  I  cast  my  eye 
casually  along  the  carpet,  behind  the  tier  of  gorgeous 
1  supers,'  and  in  one  corner  I  noticed  an  untidy  little  pile 
of  dingy  cotton  and  a  pair  of  deplorable  shoes.  They 
were  the  relics  left  behind  him  by  some  coolie  or  hammal, 
some  inferior  palace  menial,  who  had  been  taking  his  siesta 


310  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

in  the  casual  native  fashion  in  the  first  place  that  was 
convenient,  and  no  doubt  meant  to  resume  it  as  soon  as  he 
had  finished  the  errand  on  which  he  had  been  despatched. 
The  stage  carpenter's  coat  and  moleskin  cap  and  pot  of 
beer  are  kept  behind  the  scenes  in  most  countries;  in 
India  nobody  seems  to  mind  very  much  if  they  are  close 
to  the  footlights  when  the  curtain  rings  up.  If  you  go  to 
a  railway-station  to  witness  the  state  entry  of  a  Viceroy, 
you  will  see  another  exhibition  of  red  cloth,  and  uniforms, 
and  carefully  marshalled  notabilities.  But  when  the  train 
steams  up  to  the  platform,  the  guard  of  honour  will 
probably  find  itself  presenting  arms,  in  the  first  instance, 
to  bare-legged  followers  and  half-dressed  servants  hanging 
in  disorderly  groups  out  of  the  windows  and  about  the 
footboards  of  the  carriages. 

The  same  antithesis  enters  curiously  into  Anglo-Indian 
life.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  luxury  with  an  absence 
of  elementary  necessaries,  more  show  than  comfort.  There 
are  places  where  a  silver  ewer  is  more  easily  to  be  got 
than  enough  clean  water  to  wash  your  hands,  or  a  glass 
of  it  pure  enough  to  drink.  The  Anglo-Indian  expects  to 
sit  down  to  a  meal  of  four  courses  in  the  midst  of  the 
wilderness,  but  he  does  not  hope  to  get  a  slice  of  nourish- 
ing fresh  beef  or  mutton.  His  elaborate  menu  at  dinner  is 
largely  made  up  of  the  flesh  of  animals,  which  have  been 
running  about  the  compound  at  lunch-time,  if  their  bodies 
have  not  been  conveyed  to  him  in  tins  from  Australia 
and  America.  There  are  many  places  where  he  can  have 
iced  champagne  but  where  he  cannot  get  milk  which  can 
be  put  into  his  tea  with  safety.  In  the  midst  of  groves 
of  mangoes  and  date-palms  and  waving  fields  of  grain, 
his  vegetables  may  be  bottled  peas,  and  his  fruits  canned 
peaches  from  California. 

Similarly  he  keeps  a  carriage  or  two,  where  in  England 
he  would  hardly  have  a  bicycle,  and  he  can  borrow  a 


LIGHTS  AND   SHADOWS  OF  EXILE  311 

horse  more  lightly  than  an  umbrella.  A  man  who  would 
never  think  of  riding  in  England  would  never  think  of 
walking  in  India.  But  that  same  individual  in  the  latter 
country,  even  if  rich  and  influential,  must  go  very  short 
of  many  things  which  in  the  former  come  as  a  matter  of 
course  to  everybody — such  things,  for  instance,  as  books, 
magazines,  daily  and  weekly  newspapers,  doctors,  druggists, 
theatres,  most  of  the  articles  which  are  sold  over  the 
counter  in  every  provincial  town  at  home.  He  may  have 
to  send  a  thousand  miles  for  a  new  hat,  a  hundred  for  a 
pair  of  braces.  His  wife  may  drive  out  in  a  sort  of 
state  carriage,  with  grooms  running  at  her  horses'  heads ; 
but  she  has  no  chemist  round  the  corner  to  purvey  her 
sal-volatile  if  she  has  a  headache,  no  convenient  haber- 
dasher's shop  at  which  any  of  the  minor  deficiencies  of 
the  wardrobe  can  be  supplied.  If  her  clothes  want 
mending,  they  are  handed  over  to  the  household  tailor, 
who  encamps  on  the  verandah  with  his  needles  and 
threads,  and  works  his  will  alike  on  the  Memsahib's  Bond 
Street  gowns  and  '  Master's  '  riding-breeches. 

If  you  are  the  guest  of  any  official  of  importance,  or 
other  prosperous  Anglo-Indian  resident,  you  will  be  lodged 
in  an  apartment  which  at  first  sight  is  rather  imposing. 
It  is  about  twenty-five  feet  square,  and  as  high  as  it  is 
wide,  with  a  punkah  hanging  from  the  ceiling.  Should 
you  feel  incommoded  by  the  heat,  you  have  only  to  clap 
your  hands  and  say  a  word,  and  unseen  arms  somewhere 
will  cause  the  fan  to  flap  refreshingly  until  you  need  it 
no  longer.  If  your  soul  desires  a  cooling  drink,  you  do 
not  ring  a  bell  and  wait  until  it  pleases  a  haughty 
functionary  in  a  remote  apartment  to  ascend  some  flights 
of  stairs  and  consider  the  application.  You  call  to  your 
'  boy,'  reposing  on  his  mat  behind  the  door-screen,  and 
promptly  he  goes  away  and  promptly  returns  with  a 
tinkling  tumbler. 


312  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

If  important  messages  have  to  be  sent,  you  step  out 
upon  the  verandah,  where  the  chuprassis,  the  red-scarved 
official  commissionaires  of  your  host's  establishment,  are 
in  waiting.  They  salaam  humbly  at  your  call,  take  the 
order,  and  are  off — well,  not  exactly  like  the  wind,  but 
with  reasonable  diligence.  Again,  when  you  want  a  bath, 
you  are  not  compelled  to  cross  a  passage,  or  even  to  turn 
on  a  hot-water  tap.  You  utter  your  instructions,  there  is 
a  pattering  of  bare  feet,  and  a  swishing  of  water  from 
buckets  and  goatskin  bags,  and  presently  the  curtain 
before  one  of  the  four  doors  of  the  apartment  is  drawn 
back,  and  there  is  the  big  tin  tub  all  ready  to  step  into, 
with  a  waiting  satellite  to  proffer  soap  and  towels  and 
sponges.  All  this  sounds — to  some  extent,  indeed,  it  is 
— rather  luxurious. 

On  the  other  hand,  your  commodious  chamber  has 
many  of  the  characteristics  which  seem  to  us  proper  to 
a  prison  or  hospital  ward,  and  some  which  would  not  be 
tolerated  in  either.  The  ceiling  is  bare  beam  and  rafter. 
There  is  no  paper,  or  silk,  or  tapestry  on  the  walls,  because 
dust,  and  heat,  and  damp,  and  insects  render  anything 
but  distemper  impossible.  The  floor  is  of  cement,  for 
the  same  reason.  The  furniture  is  heavy  and  hard  and 
forbidding,  useful,  but  not  elegant  or  attractive  :  a  bed 
with  a  mere  framework  of  iron  rods  to  support  the 
mosquito-curtains,  brown  wooden  armchairs  with  cane 
bottoms,  clean  wooden  tables,  oblong  or  circular. 

Your  host  may  lack  neither  means  nor  taste ;  but  who 
would  spend  much  money  on  upholstery,  when  encamped, 
so  to  speak,  for  perhaps  three  or  five  years,  or  at  the 
most  for  ten  ?  And  this  in  a  climate  where  the  mandi- 
bles of  insects,  the  teeth  of  rodents,  and  the  hands  of  native 
servants  are  always  to  be  dreaded?  The  amenities  of 
your  spacious  quarters  do  not  include  those  of  privacy 
and  seclusion.     There  are,  as  I  have  said,  four  doors ;   but 


<   *  «  c 


'fit 


LIGHTS   AND   SHADOWS  OF  EXILE  313 

during  the  heat  of  the  day,  and  in  the  summer  during  the 
night  also,  these  are  all  left  open,  and  are  defended  only 
by  curtains  and  screens  of  lath.  Life  is  very  public  in 
India.  Most  of  the  bungalows  have  no  internal  passages. 
All  rooms  open  into  one  another,  or  upon  the  verandah ; 
and  if  you  want  to  know  whether  anybody  is  at  home, 
the  simplest  way  is  to  lift  up  the  curtain  and  look  in. 

Lastly,  Anglo-Indian  luxury  is  always  compatible  with 
the  denial  of  some  things  without  which  we  in  the  West 
have  learnt  to  believe  that  existence  would  stand  still. 
You  cannot  say  that  the  drains  are  good  or  that  they  are 
bad  in  an  Indian  house,  for  as  a  rule  there  are  no  drains. 
The  sanitary  arrangement  is  precisely  that  which  pre- 
vailed in  England  in  the  fifteenth  century  and  in  Scotland 
in  the  eighteenth.  It  is  endurable,  as  noticed  in  a  former 
chapter,  because  of  the  abundance  of  the  cheap  human 
animal,  and  the  willingness  of  certain  Orientals  to  dis- 
charge servile  functions  which  few  men  can  be  induced  to 
perform  for  hire  in  the  West.  But  that  is  characteristic 
of  the  '  gorgeous  East,'  with  its  external  glitter  and  its 
inward  limitations.  Its  realities  come  a  little  closer  to  us, 
when  we  reflect  that  a  man  who  perhaps  rides  abroad 
with  a  cavalry  escort,  before  a  salaaming  multitude,  lives 
at  home  under  conditions  which  no  English  town-council 
would  permit  if  they  were  inflicted  on  a  day  labourer  in 
a  common  lodging-house. 


314  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 


CHAPTEE    XXII 
THE   MEMSAHIB 

Ingenious  writers  of  fiction  have  given  an  engaging  pic- 
ture of  her,  as  of  one  who  combines  imperfect  manners 
with  highly  uncertain  morals.  That  the  wives  and 
mothers  of  British  India  are  always  fast  and  sometimes 
loose  is  a  libel  too  blatant  to  gain  acceptance  even  from 
popular  novelists.  But  many  persons  would  be  quite 
prepared  to  find  the  Englishwoman  in  India  loud, 
irresponsible,  and  flirtatious.  Also  they  believe  that  her 
life  is  one  of  unfettered  enjoyment,  passed  in  an  atmo- 
sphere of  Oriental  indolence,  untroubled  by  sordid  cares, 
with  half  her  time  spent  in  a  glorified  grass-widowhood 
on  the  hill-tops,  amid  a  congregation  of  male  admirers. 

The  picture  is  absurdly  mendacious.  But  no  doubt  it 
is  true  that  matronhood  in  India  often  carries  with  it  a 
certain  element  of  exuberance,  a  touch  of  lightness  and 
gaiety,  which  are  commonly  wanting  to  the  state  matri- 
monial of  middle-class  England.  There  is  a  spaciousness 
and  freedom  about  the  life  which  makes  it  seem  attractive 
enough,  especially  to  those  who  do  not  look  very  far 
below  the  surface  of  things.  In  the  early  years  of  her 
exile,  the  memsahib,  particularly  if  she  is  high-spirited 
and  good-looking,  can  contrive  to  enjoy  herself  very  well. 

Young  girls  and  young  wives,  if  fortunate  in  their 
location  and  surroundings,  find  much  to  commend  in  India. 
From  the  grey  dulness  of  the  parsonage,  the  fossilised 
family  circle,  the  country  village,  or  the  suburban  square, 


THE   MEMSAHIB  315 

the  youthful  bride  is  transported  to  a  larger  atmosphere 
and  a  more  vivid  light.  The  life  is  less  intellectual,  and  in 
reality  it  is  harder ;  but  at  first  sight  it  seems  broader, 
sunnier,  more  luxurious,  with  wider  scope  for  amusement 
and  easier  social  intercourse.  People  dine  more  and  dance 
more  and  play  more  than  persons  of  a  similar  social  status 
can  usually  do  at  home  ;  they  see  more  of  their  friends 
and  acquaintances,  the  few  white  folks  with  whom  they 
are  islanded  amid  the  ocean  of  brown  humanity ;  there  is 
more  unrestrained  communion  between  the  sexes ;  a  spice 
of  Southern  levity  mitigates  the  formalism  of  English 
manners. 

My  friend  Tompkyns  Sahib,  of  whom  mention  has 
already  been  made,  has  a  sister,  whom  he  brought  out  to 
spend  a  cold  season  with  him.  Miss  Tompkyns's  blue 
eyes  and  cool  pink  cheeks  were  naturally  appreciated  in 
a  station  where  girls  at  the  moment  were  scarce.  So 
nobody  was  surprised  when  that  smart  young  officer, 
Captain  Jones,  of  the  150th  Chitralis,  induced  her  to 
share  his  bungalow  and  his  fortune. 

The  latter  was  moderate,  the  former  far  from  sump- 
tuous. Nevertheless,  Mrs.  Jones,  at  Cutchapore,  feels 
herself  a  good  deal  more  important  than  Miss  Tompkyns 
was  at  Streatham,  or  was  ever  likely  to  have  become  if 
she  had  accepted  the  attentions  of  a  possible  suitor  in 
that  respectable  locality.  She  drives  about  the  station 
in  a  dashing  high  dog-cart,  with  a  tall  syce  in  a  gold- 
laced  turban  holding  a  sunshade  over  her  pretty  head. 
At  Streatham,  Miss  Tompkyns  made  her  journeys  for  the 
most  part  by  omnibus  or  in  the  London  County  Council's 
inexpensive  tramcars. 

The  Jones  compound  is  rather  an  untidy  enclosure, 
with  a  good  deal  of  dusty  turf  and  sun-baked  flower-bed  ; 
but  there  is  room  in  it  for  some  score  or  so  of  servants, 
for  the  stables  in  which  the  captain  keeps  his  charger  and 


316  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

a  couple  of  polo  ponies  and  his  wife's  trapper  and  riding- 
horse,  and  for  the  deep  well,  with  its  rough  windlass  and 
sloping  embankment,  up  which  two  yoke  of  patient 
bullocks  draw  water  all  day  long  for  the  necessities  of  the 
household. 

There  is  always  something  going  on  at  Cutchapore, 
which  is  a  largish  cantonment  with  a  British  battalion 
and  a  couple  of  native  regiments  in  the  lines.  Mrs.  Jones 
goes  out  to  dinners  and  gives  them ;  she  can  reckon  on  a 
dance  about  once  a  week  in  the  cold  season  ;  in  the  late 
afternoons  everybody  drives  down  to  the  club,  where  there 
is  Badminton  for  the  ladies  and  bridge  and  racquets  for 
the  men  ;  hockey,  tennis,  polo,  and  croquet  are  cultivated 
with  assiduity,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  for  Mrs.  Jones  to 
be  doing  or  seeing. 

She  has  no  lack  of  masculine  society.  An  informal 
tea-party  is  held  several  days  in  the  week  on  the  wide 
and  shaded  verandah  in  front  of  her  drawing-room.  Nice 
'boys  '  from  the  military  camps,  and  dapper  young  civilians, 
are  on  terms  of  easy  intimacy  with  her,  are  in  and  out  of 
her  house  rather  frequently,  are  perhaps  not  discouraged 
from  smoking  cigarettes  and  drinking  whisky  and  soda  in 
her  drawing-room,  are  permitted  to  ride  and  drive  and 
walk  and  sing  songs  with  her,  and  generally  to  con- 
stitute themselves  into  a  court  of  her  devoted  but  discreet 
admirers  and  attendants. 

Mrs.  Jones  enjoys  it  all,  in  this  heyday  of  her  spring- 
time, though  she  is  conscious  that  the  Indian  climate 
does  not  improve  the  cream-and-rose  complexion  she 
brought  with  her  from  England.  She  adapts  herself  to 
the  traditions  of  the  station,  treats  all  natives  with 
becoming  hauteur,  develops  social  ambitions,  and  is  even 
disposed  to  look  down  on  the  boxwallahs,  the  mere  mer- 
cantile persons,  whom  her  brother  sometimes  introduces 
to  her  notice.     It  is  very  different  from  Streatham ;  and 


THE  MEMSAHIB  317 

Mrs.  Jones,  when  she  pays  a  brief  visit  to  her  relatives 
at  home,  finds  their  social  circle  tame  and  their  recreations 
limited,  and  thinks  England  an  uncomfortable  country, 
with  a  very  inadequate  supply  of  domestic  servants. 

But,  as  the  years  go  by,  she  discovers  that  the 
attractions  of  India  are  not  purchased  without  a  price. 
There  is  the  annual  recurring  misery  of  the  hot  weather, 
when  life  is  unendurable  out  of  doors,  and  almost  intoler- 
able within,  for  eighteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four. 
When  the  thermometer  is  in  the  nineties,  and  sometimes 
over  the  hundred,  for  weeks  at  a  time,  existence  is  a 
burden  and  a  penance.  The  men  feel  it  less ;  they  have 
their  work  to  do,  and  in  the  offices  and  law-courts,  or  on 
the  parade-ground  and  the  polo-field,  they  can  partly 
forget  the  heat. 

But  a  woman,  after  her  early  morning  ride,  can  only 
lounge  about  in  her  darkened  rooms,  anaemic,  inanimate, 
and  lonely,  trying  to  read  or  paint  or  do  something  quiet 
to  kill  the  hours  until  the  sun  has  fallen  and  it  is  possible 
to  venture  out  again.  Her  health,  her  looks,  her  temper, 
all  suffer  under  the  long  torture  of  the  Indian  summer. 
She  may  try  to  escape  it  by  flitting  to  the  hill-stations  or 
taking  a  trip  home  ;  but  Indian  wives  are  not  essentially, 
and  on  the  average,  different  from  wives  in  most  other 
countries,  and  they  do  not  enjoy  taking  perfunctory 
holidays,  while  their  husbands  are  toiling  on,  exposed  to 
all  the  perils  of  climate  and  illness. 

Then  there  are  the  children.  India  is  no  country  for 
them.  It  is  not  till  Mrs.  Jones's  boy  and  girl  have  come 
that  she  sometimes  begins  to  envy  her  married  sister  at 
home.  She  vows  she  will  keep  the  children  with  her  as 
long  as  possible  ;  but  at  the  best  she  finds  she  cannot 
have  them  for  more  than  a  short  time.  The  white-faced 
precocious  Anglo-Indian  child  must  be  sent  home,  if  it  is 
to  get  the  sturdy  English  limbs,  and  the  English  colour, 


318  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

and,  above  all,  the  English  mind  and  morals  and 
behaviour.  The  petting  and  spoiling  and  cringing  of 
the  native  ayahs  and  servants  are  not  wholesome,  after 
the  first  infantile  years;  and  when  the  child  begins  to 
'take  notice,'  it  notices  more  things  than  a  judicious 
parent  cares  to  have  brought  to  its  attention. 

One  lady  told  me  that  the  road  near  her  bungalow 
happened  to  be  much  frequented  by  parties  of  Hindus 
taking  their  dead  down  to  the  Burning  Ghat.  Close  by 
the  house  was  a  patch  of  grass,  kept  well  watered  by  the 
cantonment  authorities,  which  was  a  favourite  spot  for 
the  bearers  to  put  down  their  stiff  white  burden  for  a 
few  minutes'  rest  and  gossip.  My  friend  was  horrified 
to  find  that  her  little  daughter  was  constantly  taken  to 
this  attractive  rendezvous  by  her  ayah  in  the  course  of 
the  morning  walk.  Again,  what  is  a  careful  mother  to  say 
when  an  intelligent  child  comes  back  from  the  servants' 
compound  with  the  information  that  Kuttun  or  Muttroo 
has  provided  himself  with  a  second  wife,  having  un- 
fortunately failed  to  obtain  a  male  heir  by  the  assistance 
of  his  first  consort  ? 

So  at  five  years  of  age,  or  thereabouts,  the  child  goes 
home  to  be  left  to  the  care  of  strangers  or  the  more  or 
less  satisfying  kindness  of  relations.  It  is  not  so  bad 
now,  in  these  days  of  rapid  communication,  as  it  used  to 
be.  The  Anglo-Indian  mother  may,  if  she  is  lucky,  see 
her  children  every  second  or  third  year ;  but  then  that 
probably  means  months  of  separation  from  her  husband. 
The  boy  grows  up  to  manhood,  seeing  his  father  only  as 
a  holiday  visitor ;  the  girl  may  be  a  woman  and  a  wife 
herself  before  she  has  the  chance  of  real  intimacy  with 
her  mother. 

There  are  good  schools  at  the  hill-stations,  and  some 
Anglo-Indians  are  getting  their  sons  and  daughters  edu- 
cated there.    But  the  experiment  is  not  wholly  successful. 


THE  MEMSAHIB  319 

It  is  the  moral,  as  much  as  the  physical,  climate  of 
Asia  which  is  unhealthy  for  the  English  child.  The 
'country-bred,'  they  tell  us,  even  if  of  the  best  stock, 
deteriorates.  As  a  rule,  I  suppose,  the  Anglo-English 
children  will  continue  to  be  sent  home,  leaving  aching 
hearts  behind  them. 

That  is  one  side  of  the  tragedy  that  lurks  beneath  the 
buoyant  surface  of  the  memsahib's  existence.  And  there 
are  others,  or  at  least  the  possibility  of  others  ;  for  in 
India  one  never  knows  what  may  happen.  Death,  disease, 
and  danger  are  no  respecters  of  sex.  The  Anglo-Indian 
woman  requires  to  keep  her  wits  about  her  and  to  be 
possessed  of  that  quality  which  is  known  as  presence  of 
mind.  Let  me  give  two  or  three  examples  communi- 
cated to  me,  quite  casually  and  in  the  course  of  conversa- 
tion, by  Anglo-Indian  ladies  themselves. 

1.  The  narrator  is  the  wife  of  a  magistrate,  who  is  in 
charge  of  a  remote  district,  inhabited  by  a  primitive 
agricultural  population.  Their  bungalow  is  fifty  miles 
from  the  nearest  station,  the  nearest  English  lady,  the 
nearest  European  doctor.  The  magistrate  and  his  wife 
are  the  only  white  people  in  the  place,  except  a  sub- 
ordinate official  of  the  Public  Works  Department;  the 
assistants  in  the  office  are  all  natives.  In  the  very  height 
of  the  hot  season  plague  breaks  out  in  the  village.  The 
visitation  is  new  to  these  parts,  and  the  inhabitants  are 
in  a  state  of  panic  terror. 

Through  the  fierce  summer  days,  the  sulphurous 
summer  nights,  the  magistrate  has  to  do  the  work  of  ten 
men :  he  has  to  keep  the  frightened  peasants  from 
abandoning  their  houses  and  fleeing  helplessly  to  the 
fields ;  he  has  to  devise  measures  of  sanitation  and  dis- 
infection, and  see  that  they  are  carried  out ;  he  has  to  get 
the  dead  buried  and  the  sick  nursed,  to  worry  the  distant 
Provincial  Government  for  medicines  and  help,  to  attend 


320  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

to  his  normal  office  duties,  and  keep  the  machinery  of 
administration  going  all  the  time. 

Before  the  crisis  is  over  he  is  himself  struck  down. 
One  evening  he  comes  home,  after  spending  a  terrible 
afternoon  among  the  plague-stricken  huts,  with  his 
eyes  burning  and  his  hands  shaking.  That  night  he 
has  high  fever,  and  next  morning  he  is  on  his  bed  unable 
to  move.  The  memsahib  must  do  everything.  A  tangle 
of  responsibilities  is  upon  her.  She  is  compelled  to  nurse 
her  husband,  and  to  do  about  half  his  work  at  the  same 
time,  to  conduct  his  correspondence  with  the  Govern- 
ment, to  take  his  directions  to  the  native  subordinates, 
themselves  paralysed  with  alarm  and  anxiety,  to  give 
orders  in  his  name  to  the  frightened  villagers,  to  see  that 
the  social  organisation  does  not  lapse  into  chaos  before 
he  can  rise  from  his  couch  of  sickness. 

Upon  the  hands  of  this  young  woman  are  thousands 
of  helpless  people;  they  look  to  her — since  there  is  no 
one  else — for  help,  counsel,  guidance,  moral  support, 
medical  advice.  For  the  moment  she  is  the  representa- 
tive of  the  Sirkar,  the  principle  of  authority ;  if  she  fails 
them  the  tie  that  binds  the  community  will  snap,  the 
work  of  years  will  be  undone. 

She  does  not  fail.  She  nurses  the  invalid  till  it  is  pos- 
sible for  him  to  be  moved ;  she  admonishes  the  collapsed 
native  assistants  to  do  their  duty,  consults  with  the  head 
of  the  police,  exhorts  the  villagers  in  the  name  of  the  sick 
chief,  becomes,  like  him,  doctor,  nurse,  inspector  of  sani- 
tation, commissariat  officer,  general  controller  of  affairs. 
All  this  the  memsahib  does — she  who  six  years  ago  was 
a  school-girl,  who  before  she  came  to  India  had  seen 
nothing  of  life  more  serious  than  a  little  '  parish  work ' 
with  the  curate. 

2.  An  English  lady  is  sitting  in  her  verandah  one 
afternoon.     Her  husband  is  away  on  a  tour  of  inspection, 


THE  MEMSAHIB  321 

and  will  not  return  for  a  day  or  two.  Suddenly  there  is 
a  great  commotion  in  the  compound  ;  a  crowd  of  servants 
and  hangers-on  rush  up.  A  man  has  been  bitten  in  the 
foot  by  a  snake,  supposed  to  be  a  cobra ;  in  a  few  minutes 
he  will  be  dead  unless  the  memsahib  will  help.  There  is 
no  European  within  call ;  there  is  a  native  doctor,  but  he 
lives  in  a  village  eight  miles  distant. 

The  lady  puts  down  her  novel  and  goes  to  look  at  the 
sufferer.  He  is  lying  in  a  heap  on  his  string  bed,  beside 
himself  with  terror,  pointing  to  his  foot,  and  clamouring 
to  have  the  bitten  place  cut  out.  The  man  may  or  may 
not  die  from  snake-bite ;  but  he  will  assuredly  die  from 
fear  if  the  operation  is  not  performed.  Will  not  any  of 
the  servants  undertake  it  ?  With  one  accord  they  excuse 
themselves.  The  Mohammedan  butler  says  that  if  it  be 
the  will  of  God  the  man  must  die,  otherwise  he  will  re- 
cover ;  and  he  intimates  that  in  either  case  he  personally 
sees  no  occasion  to  intervene.  The  bearer,  a  Hindu,  has 
religious  scruples  ;  the  other  bystanders  are  all  too  flurried 
and  nervous  to  do  anything  but  talk  loudly  and  make 
confused  suggestions. 

What  is  to  be  done  ?  The  lady  knows  nothing  about 
surgery,  and  has  never  operated  on  anything  bigger  than 
a  pet  canary  in  her  life ;  her  friends  at  home  give  her 
credit  for  being  a  rather  unhandy,  self-indulgent,  incapable 
kind  of  person.  But  she  is  a  soldier's  daughter ;  she  comes 
of  the  race  on  which  emergency  acts  like  a  tonic.  She 
sends  to  the  house  for  one  of  her  husband's  razors,  tells 
a  groom  to  hold  the  man's  legs,  and  then  and  there  hacks 
the  bitten  piece  out  of  the  quivering  brown  foot.  It  is 
a  horrible  bungling  bit  of  work  ;  there  are  no  anaesthetics 
or  antiseptics,  and  the  operator's  white  hands  and  white 
dress  are  all  dabbled  with  the  spouting  blood. 

*  I  was  not  at  all  certain,'  she  told  me,  *  that  I  should 
not  kill  the  man   by  cutting  an  artery,  or  giving  him 

Y 


322  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

lockjaw  or  something.  But  I  felt  quite  sure  he  would 
have  died  if  I  had  not  done  it.'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in 
spite  of  the  unskilful  surgery,  and  the  amateur  bandaging 
with  which  they  contrived  to  stop  the  bleeding,  the  man 
recovered,  and  lived  (I  hope)  to  be  grateful.  *  I  wonder 
how  you  could  do  it,'  said  I.  '  Oh,  I  don't  know.  It  had 
to  be  done,'  replied  the  memsahib.  '  Have  another  cup 
of  tea,  won't  you  ?  ' 

3.  A  civilian,  with  his  wife  and  girl-baby  twenty 
months  old,  in  a  disturbed  district  near  the  Frontier. 
The  Mahsuds  are  disaffected,  and  roving  bands  are  on  the 
prowl  all  over  the  country.  The  husband's  duties  compel 
him  to  spend  the  whole  day  in  a  survey  camp  twenty 
miles  distant.  Before  he  rides  out  he  puts  a  loaded 
revolver  into  his  wife's  hand :  '  If  the  Pathans  come,  shoot 
the  child  first  and  then  shoot  yourself.'  When  next  you 
are  inclined  to  talk  lightly  of  Anglo-Indian  womanhood, 
think  of  this  little  scene :  the  young  mother  standing 
there  in  the  dim  morning  light  with  the  pistol  clenched 
in  her  hand,  while  the  husband,  after  that  grim  farewell 
address,  calmly  mounts  his  horse  and  rides  forth  to  do  his 
spell  of  daily  toil  for  a  forgetful  Government  and  an 
unappreciative  people. 

4.  Another  young  wife  goes  out  after  breakfast  to 
make  her  inspection  of  the  servants'  quarters,  the  small 
hamlet  of  huts  and  shanties  behind  the  bungalow.  She 
finds  that  plague  has  attacked  the  establishment  in  the 
night ;  one  man  is  dead  already,  two  are  dying.  The 
same  lady  told  me  that  coming  home  in  a  friend's  carriage 
late  one  night  after  a  dance  she  found  her  own  coach- 
man lying  dead  of  cholera  on  the  steps  of  her  residence. 
A  disagreeable  experience ;  especially  when  one  has  two 
young  children  inside  the  house. 

When  you  listen  to  stories  such  as  these — and  there 
are  many  Anglo-Indian  women  who  could  supply  copious 


THE  MEMSAHIB  323 

additions  to  your  collection — you  are  inclined  to  revise 
your  estimate  of  the  memsahib.  If  you  see  her  some- 
times, when  her  life  '  fleets  pleasantly  as  in  the  golden 
world/  you  may  remember  that  sooner  or  later  some 
crisis  may  arise,  some  grave  moment  of  stress  and 
strain,  which  will  test  her  mettle.  They  come  suddenly, 
these  strokes  of  Fate,  more  suddenly  in  India  than  else- 
where. Behind  the  easy,  indulgent,  sociable  existence, 
the  spectral  shapes  loom — the  spectres  of  death,  of  deadly 
sickness,  of  absence,  loneliness,  separation.  No  wonder  if, 
in  the  midst  of  her  mirth,  the  memsahib  casts  an  anxious 
glance  at  them ;  no  wonder  that  her  laugh  is  sometimes 
a  little  hollow,  that  her  merriment  is  a  trifle  forced, 
that  there  is  a  suggestion  of  strain  and  nervousness  in 
her  gaiety.  If  she  enjoys  herself  more  obtrusively  than 
her  staid  sisters  at  home,  if  she  laughs  more  loudly, 
talks  more  freely,  and  cultivates  male  friendships  with  a 
more  candid  comradeship,  we  need  not  assume  that  she  is 
merely  frivolous  and  empty.  When,  it  may  be  after  years 
of  ease  and  security,  the  day  of  her  trial  comes  she  does 
not  often  prove  unequal  to  it. 


x2 


324  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 


CHAPTEE  XXIII 
IN    THE    VILLAGES 

1  You  will  see  many  things  and  people  in  India/  said  the 
Member  of  Council,  'but  do  not  forget  the  Man  who 
Matters.' 

'  Meaning  thereby  ?  ■  I  inquired. 

'  Meaning  the  cultivator  of  the  soil.  India,  recollect, 
consists  mainly  of  him.' 

That  is  a  fact  which  nobody  who  wishes  to  grasp  the 
conditions  of  Indian  life  should  for  a  moment  ignore. 
It  is  also  one  of  the  reasons  why,  to  the  ordinary  tourist, 
the  customary  autumn  trip  is  so  unsatisfying ;  for  it 
gives  him  little  real  insight  or  information  in  return  for 
long  and  dusty  railway  journeys,  for  poor  food,  and  for 
hotels,  with  a  few  exceptions,  contemptibly  inadequate. 
He  goes  in  at  one  of  the  two  great  sea-gates  and  emerges 
at  the  other :  having  in  the  interim  spent  more  or  less 
time  at  Delhi,  Agra,  Benares,  and  perhaps  at  Madura, 
Conjevaram,  Ellora,  and  Ahmedabad,  with  a  run  up  to 
Simla  or  Darjiling  for  a  look  at  the  snow-ranges.  He 
will  have  seen  some  interesting  towns,  some  wonderful 
tombs  and  temples  and  ancient  monuments,  and  some 
picturesque  scenery.  But  of  the  Indian  people  he  will 
know  little  more  than  when  he  set  out  from  home.  For 
the  Indian  people  do  not  live  in  the  cities.  Their  habitat 
is  in  the  country,  to  which  five-sixths  of  them  belong ; 
the  overpowering  majority  of  them  are  villagers. 

And  with  the  villager  it  is  not  easy  to  come  into 


c  c  c  c  c 

c  c  c  c  c 


c'  C 


(  <  c  c 

c  c  c  c 

'  c  c 

C  (  c  c 

c  c  c  c 


IN  THE  VILLAGES  325 

touch  without  the  benevolent  assistance  of  those  who 
conduct  the  local  administration.  Without  such  aid  the 
voyager  can  hardly  ever  set  eyes  on  a  rural  hamlet, 
except  from  a  distance ;  he  will  not  know  how  to  approach 
it.  There  are  no  railway-stations  at  the  villages ;  their 
only  access,  as  a  rule,  is  by  field-paths  or  jungle-tracks, 
or  at  the  best  by  cutcha  roads,  narrow  lanes,  deep  in  sand 
or  mire,  along  which  a  horse  may  travel,  but  not  a 
carriage  with  wheels  and  springs. 

If  you  would  seek  out  one  of  these  communities,  you 
must  get  the  Collector  to  send  his  tehsildar  or  other 
qualified  native  assistant  to  pilot  you  to  the  clump  of 
thatched  or  mud-walled  dwellings;  you  must  let  him 
summon  the  headman  and  bring  out  the  principal  inhabi- 
tants and  set  them  to  elucidate  for  your  benefit  the  work- 
ing of  the  primitive  but  yet  rather  complicated  little  social 
organism.  Better  still  it  is  to  have  a  good  friend  who, 
being  himself  Deputy  Commissioner  or  Settlement  Officer, 
will  endure  the  burden  of  taking  an  irresponsible  inquisi- 
tive spectator  into  his  camp  when  he  goes  bis  rounds. 
Then  you  see  the  Man  who  Matters — governing  man  and 
governed — at  first  hand,  and  you  begin  to  realise  the 
difference  between  the  semi-Europeanised  sophisticated 
India  of  the  towns  and  the  India  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  million  peasants. 

To  go  into  camp  with  a  Settlement  Officer  is,  indeed, 
among  the  most  delightful  and  instructive  experiences 
that  a  visitor  to  India  can  enjoy ;  and  a  few  days  so  spent, 
under  kindly  and  competent  guidance,  will  teach  him 
more  of  the  life  of  the  villages,  which  is  the  life  of  the 
people,  than  many  weeks  passed  in  other  and  less  informal 
ways.  For  with  this  village  life  the  civilian  engaged  in 
settlement  work,  more  even  than  his  colleagues,  the  District 
Magistrate  and  the  Police  Superintendent,  is  in  intimate 
and  habitual  contact. 


326  A  VISION   OF  INDIA. 

By  the  ancient  law  and  custom  of  all  the  states  and 
provinces  of  India,  the  ruling  power  is  entitled  to  a  certain 
proportion  of  every  acre  of  land  in  the  country,  unless  it 
has  transferred  or  limited  its  rights.     The  procedure  by 
which  that  proportion  is  determined  is  called  a  Settlement 
of  the  Land  Kevenue.     Such  a  settlement  may  be  per- 
manent, in  which  case  the  demand  of  the  State  is  fixed 
once  and  for  ever.     This  was  the  course  adopted  in  the 
famous  Permanent  Settlement  of  1793,  which  is  operative 
over  the  whole  of  Bengal  and  parts  of  the  United  Pro- 
vinces and  Madras.     By  this  much-criticised  measure,  the 
persons  responsible  to  the  State  for  the  collection  of  the 
land-revenue  were  given  all  the  rights  of  English  landlords, 
and  they  have  been  able  to  absorb  the  entire  rack-rental 
of  the  richest  agricultural  areas  of  the  Peninsula,  paying 
in  return  a  land-tax  calculated  on  the  values  of  a  hundred 
years  ago.     The  unearned  increment  goes  to  the  rent- 
receiver.     The  State  gains  nothing,  and  the  actual  culti- 
vator very  little,  though  something  has  been  done  by 
recent  legislation  to  secure  his  position  and  moderate  the 
exactions  of  the  landlord  under  the  Permanent  Settlement. 
In  the  rest  of  India  the  mistakes  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  legislators,  hidebound  in  the  traditions  of  English 
real-property  law,  have  been  avoided.     The  settlements 
are  temporary ;  and  the  Government  tax  is  fixed  for  a 
period  of  twenty  or  thirty  years  only,  after  an  elaborate 
examination  of  local  customs,  resources,  and  conditions, 
conducted  by  selected  officials  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service, 
who   are  carefully  trained    for  the  work.      A  kind  of 
Domesday  Book  is  compiled  for  each  district,  in  which  the 
particulars  for  every  village  are  entered  in  detail,  and  the 
tax  is  increased  or  diminished  on  each  holding  after  due 
consideration  of  the  facts  upon  the  record. 

This  assessment  is  of  vital  importance  to  every  person 
connected  with   the  land,  be  he  landowner,  tenant,  or 


IN  THE   VILLAGES  327 

labourer ;  for  rents,  wages,  profits,  and  to  a  large  extent 
prices,  will  rise  or  fall  in  relation  to  it.  Much,  therefore, 
depends  upon  the  Settlement  Officer.  He  must  have  a 
deep  knowledge  of  the  country,  tact,  judgment,  industry, 
patience ;  above  all,  sympathy  and  a  sense  of  justice,  so 
that  he  can  enter  into  the  feelings  of  the  agriculturists 
and  consult  their  interests  without  sacrificing  those  of 
the  Sirkar. 

At  the  headquarters  of  his  district  the  Settlement 
Officer  has  his  central  bureau,  with  a  staff  of  native 
secretaries,  clerks,  registrars,  and  draughtsmen,  who  are 
engaged  in  compiling  and  revising  the  record,  and  in 
dealing  with  the  accounts,  reports,  and  surveys  sent  in 
from  the  various  tehsils.  Much  time  is  spent  by  the 
S.  0.  in  supervising  all  this  minute  book-keeping,  and 
fixing  his  assessment,  or  hearing  appeals  from  the  pre- 
liminary decisions  of  his  subordinates.  But  during  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  cold  weather,  and  sometimes 
in  the  hot  weather  also,  he  is  occupied  with  a  close 
personal  investigation  of  the  local  conditions. 

In  the  course  of  this  examination  he  goes  over  the 
district  himself,  consults  the  tehsildars,  the  minor  revenue 
officials,  the  patwaris,  or  village  accountants,  the  head- 
men, the  landowners,  and  other  principal  inhabitants, 
looks  into  the  facts  on  the  spot,  hears  complaints,  re- 
ceives representations,  considers  the  crops,  the  rainfall, 
the  soil,  the  animals,  the  wells,  the  irrigation  facili- 
ties, the  character,  standing,  and  temperament  of  the 
population. 

The  inquisition  is  not  resented  by  the  people  for  two 
reasons.  In  the  first  place,  they  are  used  to  it ;  secondly, 
they  know  that  the  more  carefully  the  Huzur  inquires, 
the  more  readily  they  place  accurate  and  comprehensive 
information  in  his  way,  the  greater  is  the  probability  that 
the  assessment  will  be  moderate  and  equitable. 


328  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

It  is  hard,  anxious,  responsible  work  for  the  civilian 
in  charge,  yet  not  without  its  amenities,  and  performed 
in  a  stimulating  atmosphere  of  spaciousness  and  freedom. 
The  Settlement  Officer's  guest,  who  is  spared  his  host's 
responsibilities  and  anxieties,  will  hardly  fail  to  enjoy  his 
trip,  especially  if  he  is  able  to  select  for  the  scene  of  his 
pilgrimage  some  bracing  unspoilt  corner  of  the  Northern 
plains  with  a  good  spring  climate  and  a  manly  attractive 
peasantry.  He  will  see  Indian  camp  life  at  its  best : 
not,  it  is  true,  with  the  luxury  and  parade  with  which 
Governors  and  Commanders-in-Chief  are  almost  compelled 
to  surround  themselves  on  tour,  but  with  quite  as  much 
solid  comfort. 

Neither  in  the  various  Eoyal  camps,  nor  in  those  pro- 
vided by  hospitable  Maharajas  at  the  capitals  of  the 
principal  native  states,  did  I  find  myself  in  possession 
of  more  commodious  and  agreeable  quarters  than  those 
allotted  to  me  when  I  travelled  with  a  Settlement  Officer 
through  a  portion  of  his  district.  An  extra  tent — one  of 
those  admirable  double -pole  pavilions,  with  outside  porch 
and  passages,  which  I  have  already  described 1 — was  taken 
along  for  me;  otherwise  the  camp  was  in  its  ordinary 
service  guise.  Yet  it  required  a  whole  convoy  of  bullock- 
carts  and  a  long  train  of  camels  to  move  it  from  place  to 
place ;  and  when  pitched  on  the  dusty  maidan,  a  mile  or 
so  from  a  small  native  town,  it  looked  like  a  canvas 
suburb  itself.  There  was  my  host's  living-tent  and  office- 
tent,  with  an  extra  deep  verandah  in  front,  before  which  a 
local  police  sentry  kept  guard,  with  two  or  three  chuprassis 
and  orderlies  usually  sitting  in  the  corners. 

My  own  tent  was  ranged  alongside,  and  here  also 
would  have  been  that  of  the  Commissioner's  civilian 
colleague  or  deputy  if  he  had  taken  one.  At  a  little 
distance  was  the  tent  of  the  principal  native  assistant,  a 

See  supra,  Chap.  V.  p.  63. 


IN  THE   VILLAGES  329 

somewhat  important  personage,  with  responsible  executive 
and  quasi- judicial  duties  to  perform  ;  adjacent  to  this 
were  the  lodgings  of  the  tehsildar  and  those  of  the  munshi 
or  official  translator  and  secretary,  the  clerks,  surveyors, 
and  accountants.  In  the  rear  were  shanties  for  the 
servants,  a  kitchen-tent  and  a  storeroom-tent,  and  a  long 
stable-tent,  with  racks  and  mangers  and  everything  com- 
plete for  the  accommodation  of  four  or  five  horses  and 
ponies. 

Several  of  these  apartments  were  in  duplicate ;  for  we 
were  moving  about  from  day  to  day,  and  while  we  were 
using  one  set  of  tents  the  other  was  travelling  on  ahead 
so  as  to  be  ready  for  us  at  our  next  halting-place.  I  saw 
now  why  the  writing-table,  which  stood  in  my  friend's 
daftar  when  he  was  at  his  bungalow,  had  strong  steel 
hooks  depending  from  its  sides.  In  camp  it  occupied 
the  middle  of  his  office-tent,  and  his  papers  and  books 
of  reference  were  in  its  nest  of  drawers.  When  the 
day's  work  was  done  his  servants  and  tent-pitchers  would 
take  away  the  heavy  teak  bureau  in  sections ;  while  we 
were  at  dinner  they  were  slinging  it  across  the  back  of 
a  camel ;  all  through  the  night,  when  we  were  sleeping 
peacefully,  it  was  being  carried  along  the  roads  or  by 
field-paths ;  and  when,  in  the  forenoon  of  the  next  day, 
we  reached  the  new  camp,  there  was  the  office-table  in 
position,  with  its  inkstand  and  calendar  and  stationery, 
precisely  as  one  had  last  seen  it  the  previous  afternoon 
twelve  or  fourteen  miles  away. 

Early  hours  are  kept  in  the  camp.  If  you  would  ride 
out  with  the  Settlement  Officer  on  his  daily  round,  you 
must  be  up  betimes.  It  is  dark  and  chilly  as  you  scramble 
into  your  clothes  and  go  forth  to  take  chota  hazri,  the 
early-morning  tea  and  toast,  in  your  host's  tent.  The 
syces  bring  up  the  horses  and  ponies,  and  presently  you 
find  yourself  beside  the  '  Burra  Sahib,'  as  he  makes  his 


330  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

way  across  the  country,  at  the  head  of  a  miscellaneous 
troop  of  mounted  men,  with  an  infantry  detachment 
tailing  in  the  rear. 

The  cortkge  is  quite  a  large  one ;  for  it  includes  the 
chief  native  assistants  and  officials,  and  all  sorts  of  minor 
local  notabilities,  resident  landowners,  zemindars,  and 
various  persons  more  or  less  interested  in  the  matter  in 
hand.  Some  are  here  by  way  of  compliment  to  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Sirkar ;  others  merely  because  they  like 
to  see  what  is  going  on.  Anybody  who  pleases  can  join 
in  the  procession,  and  even  take  part  in  the  business, 
which  is  conducted  with  the  frank  publicity  customary  in 
a  country  where  everybody  is  cognisant  of  everybody  else's 
affairs.  A  man  in  an  old  khaki  uniform,  with  a  cavalry 
seat  on  his  weedy  country-bred  pony,  rides  up  and  salutes. 
He  is  a  retired  resaldar  of  one  of  our  lancer  regiments, 
who  has  come  back  to  settle  in  his  native  village:  a 
prosperous  man,  having  his  pension  and  special  allowances 
for  his  two  medals  and  the  Order  of  Merit.  He  attaches 
himself  to  the  Settlement  Officer  for  the  rest  of  the 
morning,  acts  as  a  sort  of  voluntary  guide  and  aide-de- 
camp, is  ready  with  much  local  learning  as  occasion 
offers. 

A  sporting  young  Mohammedan  gentleman,  in  a 
checked  coat  and  riding-breeches,  with  his  falconer  running 
beside  him,  makes  his  salaam.  He  has  brought  his  hawk, 
thinking  that  the  great  man  might  like  to  see  a  flight, 
if  a  partridge  or  a  hare  can  be  flushed  on  the  way. 
There  is  almost  a  holiday  feeling  as  the  little  troop  rides 
along  in  the  exhilarating  morning  air,  now  winding  in 
single  file  on  the  edge  of  a  plantation,  now  snapping  the 
dry  sticks  of  last  year's  cotton  crop  under  the  hoofs  of  the 
ponies,  now  cantering  across  an  open  stretch  of  jungly 
common,  with  a  herd  of  black  buck  or  chinkara  galloping 
away  in  the  distance. 


f    (    c    c    < 
f   c    t  c   ( 


Kill 


c  c  c  c 
cere 


IN  THE   VILLAGES  331 

But  serious  business  is  being  done,  and  the  Settlement 
Officer  is  hard  at  work  all  the  time.  He  has  his  eyes 
wide  open,  noting  the  aspect  of  the  country,  the  character 
of  the  vegetation,  the  lie  of  the  soil,  the  wells,  the  water- 
courses, everything.  Presently  we  come  upon  a  group  of 
men  standing  beside  a  long  bamboo  pole  at  the  top  of 
which  flutters  a  little  triangular  pink  pennant.  We  are 
at  a  village  boundary,  and  here  are  the  lambardars,  the 
headmen,  and  other  office-holders,  to  supply  information, 
answer  questions,  make  complaints.  The  Settlement 
Officer's  native  staff  gathers  round  him,  maps  are  pro- 
duced, and  registers,  and  there  is  much  interrogation, 
discussion,  and  explanation.  -  t 

Sometimes  matters  go  quietly,  sometimes  otherwise. 
Fierce  disputes  arise  between  rival  claimants  for  land,  or 
between  landlords  and  tenants,  angry  or  piteous  appeals 
are  uttered.  A  knot  of  ryots  declare  that  their  property 
has  been  wrongfully  taken  from  them  by  the  zemindars 
of  a  contiguous  village:  cannot  the  Huzur  order  them 
to  be  put  back  at  once  ?  The  Huzur  explains  that  this 
summary  process  is  slightly  beyond  his  powers  ;  moreover, 
he  has  his  doubts  as  to  the  truth  of  the  story.  The  spokes- 
man for  the  complainants  draws  his  hand  across  his  throat. 
1  The  Sahib  can  hang  me  to-morrow  if  I  lie/  he  says. 

When  the  community  is  prosperous  and  in  comfort 
general  good-humour  prevails ;  but  if  it  is  poor  and  dis- 
tressed, there  may  be  painful  scenes.  Women,  with  bowed 
heads  under  their  shrouding  mantles,  will  throw  them- 
selves before  the  officer's  path,  or  seize  the  bridle  of  his 
horse,  and  assail  him  with  tears  and  sobs  and  sometimes 
with  objurgations.  The  crops  have  failed,  they  say, 
through  the  drought,  the  young  men  have  died  of  the 
plague,  the  village  has  no  money  and  cannot  pay  the 
taxes.  The  Protector  of  the  Poor  must  bid  the  Sirkar  be 
merciful. 


332  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

With  good  reason  has  the  Government  of  India  caused 
it  to  be  placed  on  record  that  the  Settlement  Officer  is  the 
member  of  the  governing  class  who  is  likely  to  know  the 
people  best  and  to  regard  them  with  most  sympathy.  '  In 
no  official  relation  does  a  member  of  the  Public  Service 
come  into  such  close  contact  with  the  people  as  in  Settle- 
ment work ;  and  it  cannot  be  his  desire  to  aggrieve  those 
among  whom  he  is  spending  some  of  the  most  laborious 
years  of  his  life,  or  to  initiate  a  settlement  which,  after  a 
short  interval,  will  break  down.'  * 

The  sun  is  high  in  the  heavens  and  throwing  its  rays 
strongly  upon  us  when  we  ride  into  our  camp  again,  either 
the  camp  we  left  some  four  hours  earlier  in  the  grey  dawn, 
or  the  new  one,  its  duplicate,  to  which  our  chattels  and 
effects  have  been  conveyed.  In  either  case  everything  is 
in  order,  and  the  servants  are  going  about  their  duties  as 
quietly  as  if  they  had  been  settled  for  a  month.  Our 
baths  are  in  readiness,  and  after  a  wash  and  a  change  we 
find  ourselves  sitting  down  to  an  excellent  and  by  no 
means  austerely  simple  repast,  such  as  Indian  servants 
can  apparently  prepare  anywhere  and  at  any  time. 

The  brisk  morning  air  and  the  exercise  have  given  one 
an  appetite,  and  prompt  justice  is  done  to  the  scrambled 
eggs,  the  chops,  the  sausages,  the  curried  chicken,  and 
other  good  things  provided.  Afterwards,  it  is  pleasant 
to  smoke  and  chat  in  the  shade,  looking  out  upon  the 
mango-grove  and  the  far-stretching  landscape  now  glim- 
mering in  the  sun-haze.  Pleasant,  too,  to  stretch  your 
legs  in  the  long  cane-bottomed  lounging-chair  and  fall 
asleep,  or  to  steal  back  to  your  darkened  tent  for  the 
luxurious  midday  siesta  of  the  South  and  East. 

The  guest  may  take  his  ease  that  way  if  he  pleases. 
But  there  is  no  such  repose  for  his  host.     The  Settlement 

1  Land  Revenue  Policy  of  the  Indian  Government,  p.  20.   (Published  by 
order  of  the  Governor- General  in  Council,  Calcutta,  1902.) 


IN  THE   VILLAGES  333 

Officer  is  soon  at  work  again.  The  four  or  five  hours' 
ride  through  the  villages  is  only  the  prologue  to  his  day's 
labour — barely  the  first  chapter  of  it.  Half  an  hour  after 
tiffin,  his  munshi  and  chief  clerk  are  in  attendance,  and 
in  front  of  his  tent  a  long  line  of  natives  can  be  seen 
sitting  patiently  in  the  sunshine,  awaiting  audience  with 
him.  Presently  the  flap  of  the  tent  is  raised ;  the  S.O. 
has  a  table  and  chair  brought  out  to  the  entrance ;  his 
assistants  stand  near  him  with  note-books  and  pencils 
and  official  documents ;  and  by  twos,  or  threes,  or  fives, 
his  suitors  and  petitioners  appear  before  him,  telling  their 
story,  as  they  sit,  with  shoeless  feet  and  joined  supplica- 
tory hands,  on  the  ground  at  the  edge  of  the  deep  covered 
porch  or  canvas  verandah. 

Much  and  varied  is  the  business  which  the  revenue 
official  transacts  on  these  occasions.  Sometimes  he  is 
hearing  appeals  against  the  assessments  which  have  been 
provisionally  fixed,  or  he  is  considering  claims  for  exemp- 
tion and  reduction  brought  forward  by  lambardars  repre- 
senting a  whole  village,  or  by  individual  zemindars  and 
ryots.  Sometimes  he  sits  in  his  judicial  capacity,  and 
decides  intricate  disputes  over  ownership  and  compli- 
cated questions  of  tenure.  He  is  compiling  a  registry 
of  titles  as  well  as  fixing  the  burdens  which  the  land  is 
to  bear  for  the  next  twenty  or  thirty  years,  so  that  it  is 
extremely  important  for  his  records  to  be  accurate. 

Minute  local  knowledge  is  needed,  as  well  as  judgment 
and  common-sense.  A  good  Settlement  Officer  knows  the 
people  of  his  district  thoroughly ;  he  understands  their 
temperament,  their  character,  their  mode  of  cultivation, 
their  caste  distinctions  and  tribal  differences  :  and  in  the 
more  primitive  agricultural  regions,  where  the  vernacular 
press  and  the  babu  pleader  are  still  uninfluential,  they 
have  a  child-like  confidence  in  his  sense  of  justice,  not 
often,  I  think,  misplaced.      The  problems   before  him 


334  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

sometimes  need  anxious  thought,  and  it  is  not  always 
quite  easy  to  reconcile  law  and  equity,  or  to  see  the  way 
clear  through  the  undergrowth  of  vociferous  assertion  and 
doubtful  testimony. 

Here,  for  instance,  are  half  a  dozen  ryots  who  declare 
that  the  land  they  hold  was  made  over  to  them  in  abso- 
lute ownership  by  Narain  Singh,  a  zemindar  of  their 
village,  in  consideration  of  value  received.  But  Narain 
Singh,  scowling  from  the  other  end  of  the  chicon  cloth 
stretched  on  the  verandah,  declares  that  they  are  his 
tenants,  and  defies  them  to  prove  that  they  can  be  any- 
thing else.  Odd  scraps  of  faded  paper,  rude  dusty  maps, 
are  produced  and  peered  into  and  pored  over.  Probably 
Narain  is  right ;  there  seems  no  legal  proof  that  he  has 
ever  parted  with  the  ownership,  and  that  venerable  white- 
bearded  rustic,  who  adduces  youthful  memories  to  the 
contrary,  is  most  likely  lying.  Nevertheless  it  will  be  bad 
for  the  village  if  these  men,  who  have  lived  on  their  plots 
of  land  and  cultivated  them  for  years,  should  be  dis- 
possessed or  mercilessly  rack-rented.  The  Settlement 
Officer  suggests  a  compromise.  Narain  Singh  looks  sulkily 
obstinate :  the  Huzur  is  his  father  and  his  mother  ;  but 
he  knows  his  rights  under  the  law,  and  he  means  to  have 
them.     Case  adjourned  for  further  Consideration. 

It  is  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  darkness  is  falling, 
before  the  sittings  are  over  and  the  crowd  of  litigants 
and  appellants  stream  away,  many  of  them  to  return  the 
next  morning.  Then,  perhaps,  half  an  hour's  stroll  in 
the  twilight,  and  back  to  dinner ;  and  after  dinner  there 
are  a  few  notes  to  make,  a  letter  or  two  to  write,  a  bundle 
of  official  papers  to  look  at,  some  reports  of  subordinates 
to  check.  So  the  Settlement  Officer's  lonely  evening  in 
his  tent  passes  quickly  enough,  till  it  is  time  to  go  to  bed 
in  order  to  be  up  at  six  the  next  morning  for  another 
busy  day  of  responsibility  and  toil. 


IN  THE   VILLAGES  335 

They  differ  widely  among  themselves,  these  Indian 
villages,  and  it  would  be  strange  if  they  did  not,  seeing 
how  various  is  the  outward  aspect  and  climatic  character 
of  the  vast  country  they  cover.  In  the  far  South  the 
tiny  thatched  huts  are  buried  deep  in  a  tropic  growth  of 
lush  green  vegetation,  and  the  little  half-naked  brown 
people  paddle  about  in  their  wet  rice-fields,  in  the  shade 
of  dense  palm-groves  or  in  the  rank  growths  overlooking 
blue  salt-water  lagoons — turquoises  set  among  emeralds. 
It  is  like  passing  from  Sicily  to  Poland  to  travel  to  the 
Northern  plains,  and  make  acquaintance  with  the  villages 
of  the  Punjab,  standing  bare  and  gaunt  over  their  sun- 
scorched  fields. 

But,  widely  as  they  vary,  the  Indian  peasants  have 
some  points  in  common.  One  is  that  they  are  essentially 
villagers — men  of  the  village,  in  the  literal  sense.  They 
do  not  live  in  scattered  farms,  each  isolated  amid  its  own 
arable  and  pasture.  The  farmer,  be  he  owner  or  tenant, 
lives  by,  but  not  on,  his  land.  His  house,  his  sleeping- 
place  and  eating-place,  the  lairs  of  his  cattle,  his  children, 
and  his  women,  are  in  the  crooked  wynds  of  the  hamlet. 
His  fields  lie  outside,  and  he  goes  to  them  for  work  in  the 
daytime,  returning,  like  his  beasts,  his  buffaloes  and  cows 
and  bullocks,  after  sundown.  In  Indian  terminology, 
technical  and  colloquial  alike,  the  word  '  village '  has  a 
meaning  rather  like  that  of  the  old  English  township  :  it 
signifies  not  only  a  cluster  of  houses  and  farmsteads,  but 
also  all  the  lands  belonging  to,  or  cultivated  by,  the 
owners  and  inhabitants  of  the  settlement.  The  Indian 
peasant,  almost  universally,  is  a  gregarious,  social  animal. 

Thus  it  ensues  that,  whatever  he  may  suffer  from 
other  causes,  he  is  at  least  spared  the  burden  of  solitude. 
On  the  contrary,  he  has  abundant  humanity  about  him  : 
he  is  never  denied  the  society  of  his  fellows.  He  is  the 
member  of   a  community,  still  to    a  large  extent  self- 


336  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

contained,  self-centred,  and  separate  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  as  it  has  been  from  the  beginning. 

Wars  and  revolutions  have  swept  over  the  land ; 
dynasties  come  and  go ;  new  laws  are  made  by  one  set 
after  another  of  alien  rulers  in  their  turn.  Through  it 
all  the  rural  unit  endures  with  indestructible  vitality. 
Famine,  plague,  robber  raids,  the  march  of  great  armies, 
might  blot  one  village,  a  dozen  villages,  a  whole  circle, 
out  of  existence.  But  the  system  maintains  itself  with 
the  tenacity  which  Nature  confers  on  her  own  simpler 
organic  forms — 

1  So  careful  of  the  type,  it  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life.' 

Twenty-two  hundred  years  ago  a  certain  Megasthenes 
spent  some  time  in  Hindustan,  as  agent  for  Seleucus  at 
the  court  of  Chandra  Gupta,  the  Hindu  king  of  the 
lower  Ganges  region,  and  subsequently  he  set  forth  his 
Vision  of  India  for  the  benefit  of  the  reading  public  of 
ancient  Greece.  His  account  of  the  Indian  rural  com- 
munities has  been  preserved,  and  it  might  almost  pass  for 
a  description  of  a  village  in  the  United  Provinces  to-day. 
What  struck  the  Greek  investigator  is  precisely  that 
which  impresses  the  modern  visitor.  He  found  that  the 
tiny  republic — so  he  called  it,  adapting  his  language  to 
Hellenic  ideas — was  a  complete  society,  with  its  various 
classes  and  orders,  its  aristocracy,  its  helots,  and  its 
regular  hierarchy  of  officials,  each  having  his  own  ap- 
pointed duties  to  perform  towards  the  commonwealth. 
So  it  is  still  all  over  India,  though  the  social  structure  is 
better  articulated  in  some  provinces  than  in  others. 

Megasthenes  might  well  have  visited  one  of  that  very 
same  group  of  fairly  prosperous  hamlets  into  which  I  was 
inducted  by  a  well-qualified  official  guide  one  bright  morn- 
ing in  the  early  spring.     A  short  journey  across  the  fields 


IN  THE  VILLAGES  33? 

from  the  carriage-road  brought  us  to  the  village  boundary, 
that  is,  to  the  outside  limits  of  the  land  which  the 
inhabitants  tilled.  Here  we  came  upon  one  or  two  of 
the  peasants  at  work  among  their  fields  of  ripening 
wheat  and  barley  and  oil-seed.  They  were  looking  for- 
ward to  the  gathering  in  of  the  rabi,  or  spring  crop, 
which  the  Indian  farmer  sells,  whereas  the  kharif,  or 
autumn  crop,  is  that  which  he  eats. 

The  peasants  accompanied  us  into  the  interior  of  their 
little  nest  of  cottages,  and  presently  we  had  all  the  prin- 
cipal inhabitants  standing  in  a  semicircle  before  us  in 
front  of  the  village  well.  In  the  midst  was  the  zemindar, 
whom  we  must  call,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  the  land- 
lord, though  properly  he  is  only  the  rent-receiver  and 
rent-collector,  responsible  to  the  State  for  the  payment  of 
the  revenues  and  land-tax,  and  entitled  to  make  his  profit 
by  letting  the  land  to  tenants.  There  are  zemindars  of 
all  sorts  and  kinds,  enormously  wealthy  proprietors,  like 
some  of  those  in  Bengal  and  the  United  Provinces,  with 
vast  estates  and  huge  incomes,  who  own  carriages  and 
motor-cars,  and  shine  resplendent  at  official  and  viceregal 
entertainments  in  ropes  of  pearls  and  collars  of  diamonds. 

One  such  gentleman  was  pointed  out  to  me  at 
Lucknow,  who  was  understood  to  wear  ten  thousand 
pounds'  worth  of  jewellery  on  his  dress  hat.  Another 
had  subscribed  several  lakhs  towards  educational  and 
charitable  institutions ;  whilst  a  third  had  expended  an 
almost  equally  large  sum  in  the  purchase  of  a  necklace 
for  a  nautch-girl  much  in  vogue.  At  the  opposite  pole 
from  these  affluent  personages  are  such  zemindars  as  may 
be  seen  in  some  parts  of  the  Punjab,  who  are  simply 
peasant-proprietors,  yeomen  working  on  their  own  hold- 
ings of  a  few  acres  with  their  own  hands. 

The  zemindar  in  this  village  was  of  the  medium  kind — 
a  small  squireen,  only  a  little  elevated  above  his  tenants. 

z 


338  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

He  was  a  civil  shrewd  little  man,  a  Brahman  by  caste, 
wearing  a  checked  cotton  pyjama  suit  and  canvas  shoes, 
as  a  proof  of  superiority,  I  suppose,  to  his  tenants,  who 
went  bare-footed  and  bare-legged.  He  showed  us  his 
house,  built  of  brick,  with  an  upper  storey,  and  a  small 
courtyard,  from  which  the  women's  apartments  opened  ; 
for,  of  course,  the  zemindar  had  sufficient  social  status 
for  his  women  to  be  pitrdah-nashin.  He  was  accom- 
panied by  a  rather  shabby  retainer,  a  sort  of  bailiff  or 
intendant,  who  kept  his  accounts,  and  knew  much  more 
about  the  estate  than  his  employer. 

Master  and  man  answered  all  questions  quite  freely ; 
nor  did  they  appear  to  sustain  any  embarrassment  from 
the  presence  of  numerous  onlookers  and  auditors.  There 
can  be  few  secrets  in  an  Indian  community.  Everybody 
seems  to  be  perfectly  well  acquainted  with  everybody 
else's  business  and  his  private  affairs,  if  private  they  can 
be  called.  The  official  inquisitor  has  no  delicacy  in 
putting  questions,  and  the  people,  so  far  from  resenting 
the  interrogatories,  answer  with  alacrity,  and  even  pride. 
It  is  clearly  a  compliment  to  be  singled  out  as  a  person 
capable  of  giving  information  publicly  in  the  sight  of 
one's  kinsfolk  and  neighbours. 

On  this  occasion  we  had  all  the  village  notabilities 
paraded  for  our  inspection.  We  saw  the  lambardar  or 
headman,  the  patel  or  accountant,  and  the  chokidars  or 
watchmen,  these  last  clothed  in  a  shabby  uniform,  and 
armed  with  a  long  staff  for  the  terror,  more  or  less 
qualified,  of  evil-doers.  We  were  shown  the  village 
barber,  the  potter  sitting  at  his  wheel,  with  his  rows  of 
clay  plates  and  jugs  baking  in  the  sun  before  his  hut, 
the  blacksmith,  the  carpenter.  Then  we  were  taken  to 
the  square  tank,  under  the  shade  of  the  mango-trees, 
where  the  village  waters  its  beasts,  and  bathes,  and 
washes  its  clothes,  and  empties  its  slops.     On  its  bank 


IN  THE  VILLAGES  339 

we  observe  a  whitewashed  shanty,  which  is  the  village 
temple,  with  its  own  hideous  image  of  Mahadeo  smeared 
with  red  paint,  and  the  customary  symbol,  and  its  own 
private  priest,  who  has  a  grant  of  the  manorial  land  in 
return  for  his  ministrations. 

At  one  end  of  the  village  is  a  cluster  of  huts,  rather 
smaller  and  poorer  than  the  rest.  We  ask  what  this  is, 
and  are  told  briefly  that  it  is  the  place  where  the  coolies 
live,  the  chumars,  or  leather-workers  of  the  North,  the 
mahars  of  the  West,  the  pariahs  of  the  South,  the 
sweepers  and  others,  who  do  the  menial  work  of  the 
hamlet.  There  is  hardly  a  village  in  India  so  poor  that 
it  has  not  its  contingent  of  these  helots,  who  discharge 
various  necessary  offices,  such  as  clearing  away  (and 
sometimes  eating)  the  carcasses  of  dead  animals,  and 
removing  ordure. 

The  outcasts  have  their  own  well,  for  it  would  never 
do  for  them  to  contaminate  the  water  touched  by  their 
superiors ;  they  have  their  own  little  temple,  or  perhaps 
only  their  own  shapeless  block  of  stone  and  their  sacred 
tree,  that  they  may  perform  their  devotions  apart;  and 
they  are  expected  *  to  keep  themselves  to  themselves,'  so 
that  we  notice  they  do  not  join  the  group  which  gathers 
round  us,  but  stand  and  gaze  from  a  distance.  There 
is  a  village  school  to  which  the  children  of  the  trades- 
men, the  artisans,  and  the  cultivators  are  sent.  But  if 
the  boys  from  the  coolie  huts  were  received  at  this  seat  of 
education  the  others  would  leave  at  once  ;  pariah  children 
and  caste-people's  children  must  not  sit  on  the  same 
benches. 

Eiding  into  a  village  in  the  Punjab  with  a  District 
Officer  and  his  very  intelligent  and  well-educated  native 
assistant,  I  asked  the  latter  whether  the  inhabitants  of 
the  coolie  suburb  were  Hindus.  'No,'  he  replied,  with 
some  indignation,  '  how  can  they  be  Hindus  ? '    Here  the 

22 


340  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

magistrate  intervened,  and  said  that  these  people  certainly 
were  Hindus,  though  of  low  caste.  But  the  native  official 
(himself,  by  the  way,  a  member  by  birth  of  the  baniya 
or  merchant  order)  declined  to  admit  it.  '  They  are  not 
Hindus/  he  insisted,  'they  are  chumars.,  In  the  old 
days,  these  pariahs  were  practically  serfs,  compelled  to 
labour  for  the  community  on  something  less  than  a  bare 
subsistence  wage.  Now  they  have  their  rights,  like  other 
people ;  and,  if  not  properly  rewarded  for  their  services 
and  treated  with  reasonable  civility,  they  will  go  on 
strike,  and  reduce  the  village  to  great  inconvenience, 
especially  if  there  be  an  epidemic  of  cholera  or  cattle - 
plague  threatening. 

The  village  has  persons  of  other  professions,  who 
could  perhaps  be  spared  more  advantageously  than  the 
menials.  I  was  introduced  to  one  man  who  was  described 
as  the  local  money-lender.  In  outward  appearance  he 
differed  very  little  from  the  cultivators ;  but  he  had  one 
of  the  best  houses  in  the  place,  and  was,  I  believe, 
prosperous.  He  seemed  on  excellent  terms  with  the 
peasants,  and  fulfilled,  I  have  no  doubt,  a  useful  function ; 
for  what  is  the  ryot  to  do  when  the  crops  have  failed,  or 
partially  failed,  owing  to  a  deficient  rainfall  ? 

In  former  times,  when  rent  and  taxes  were  paid  in 
kind — a  quota  of  the  actual  produce  of  the  soil — the  land- 
lord and  the  Sirkar  suffered  with  the  farmer  in  a  bad  year, 
even  if  they  made  up  for  it  by  plundering  him  ruthlessly 
in  a  good  one.  In  these  days  payments  are  in  cash,  and 
they  are  fixed  and  rigid ;  the  rupees  must  be  forthcoming, 
whether  or  not  the  ryot  can  sell  his  rice  and  barley,  and 
even  when  he  has  none  to  sell.  So  if  the  harvest  has 
fallen  short,  or  the  bullocks  are  dying  for  lack  of  forage, 
or  a  dowry  and  a  suitably  expensive  marriage-feast  have 
had  to  be  provided  on  a  daughter's  wedding,  the  peasant 
goes  to  the   sowkar  and  gives  a  mortgage  on  his  farm. 


<  c  c  c  c 


c  c  t  c  c 
c  <  c  r  c 


C  (  f  c  c 


r.  c  c  c  c 

c  <-  c 

»•  c  f  a 

c  c  c  c 


IN  THE   VILLAGES  341 

Perhaps  he  redeems  it  in  a  year  or  so,  if  times  are  good ; 
perhaps  he  never  redeems  it  at  all,  and  goes  on,  year  after 
year,  paying  an  ever-increasing  burden  of  interest,  until 
at  length  he  defaults  altogether  and  the  farm  is  sold  over 
his  head. 

A  few  years  ago  it  looked  as  if,  throughout  a  large 
part  of  India,  the  farmer  would  become  a  mere  drudge, 
labouring  for  the  benefit  of  an  absentee  proprietor,  a 
money-lender  or  small  banker,  the  real  owner  of  the  land. 
But  most  of  the  local  governments  have  passed  laws 
rendering  it  difficult  or  impossible  to  pledge  the  tenants' 
interest  as  security  for  loans,  and  so  it  is  hoped  that  the 
wholesale  indebtedness  and  expropriation  of  the  peasantry 
will  be  checked. 

Next  to  debt  and  famine,  litigation  is  the  worst  evil 
from  which  the  Indian  agriculturist  suffers.  He  is  a 
disputatious,  argument-loving  creature,  constantly  quar- 
relling with  somebody  over  something,  usually  land  or 
its  many  incidents.  He  generates  an  atmosphere  in 
which  the  lawyer,  the  vakil,  the  native  pleader,  flourish 
amazingly.  In  the  old  days  these  disputes  adjusted 
themselves,  more  or  less,  by  faction  fights,  fierce  local 
feuds,  and  savage  private  vendettas. 

Now  we  have  stopped  all  that.  Ink  is  shed  instead  of 
blood  ;  angry  farmers  and  graziers,  contentious  landlords 
and  tenants,  have  it  out  with  one  another  in  the  law 
courts,  wasting  their  substance  in  suits  and  appeals,  to 
their  own  ruin,  and  to  the  profit  of  the  swarm  of  babu 
practitioners  who  are  to  be  found  everywhere.  When  the 
contest  is  once  fairly  entered  upon,  it  will  often  continue 
till  one  or  the  other  combatant  is  pumped  dry ;  and  the 
Government,  by  multiplying  the  minor  civil  courts,  and 
making  resort  to  them  easy  and  superficially  cheap, 
has  rather  encouraged  than  curtailed  this  ruinous 
indulgence. 


342  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

More  perhaps  might  be  done  to  promote  the  settle- 
ment of  disputes  by  some  inexpensive  form  of  arbitra- 
tion. A  very  useful  experiment  has  been  made  in  this 
direction  in  the  native  State  of  Patiala,  in  the  Punjab, 
a  territory  of  Jat,  Hindu,  and  Mohammedan  villagers, 
among  whom  lawsuits  used  to  rage  with  epidemic  fury. 
The  Settlement  Commissioner,  Major  F.  Popham  Young, 
induced  the  Council  of  Eegency  to  allow  him  to  con- 
stitute Panchayats,  or  local  arbitration  committees,  in 
each  district,  for  the  arrangement  of  quarrels  over  pro- 
perty and  the  adjudication  of  claims  for  the  recovery  of 
debt.  Men  of  standing  and  respectability,  small  land- 
owners, farmers,  retired  officers  and  non-commissioned 
officers  of  our  Indian  regiments,  and  the  like,  are 
nominated  in  each  village  to  form  the  committee.  They 
receive  no  pay,  but  some  modicum  of  that  izzet,  or 
honourable  recognition,  which  is  dear  to  the  heart  of 
every  native  of  the  East ;  for  they  are  allowed  a  higher 
place  at  public  audiences,  and  when  the  Commissioner 
goes  his  round  in  the  districts  the  members  of  the 
Panchayat  are  assembled  and  publicly  presented  to  him 
in  the  sight  of  all  their  fellow- villagers. 

Each  committee  has  a  clerk,  in  receipt  of  a  small 
salary,  to  keep  a  record  of  the  cases  and  the  decisions 
entered ;  and  every  disputant  pays  a  rupee  before  his 
suit  is  heard.  Otherwise  there  are  no  fees,  no  ex- 
penses, and  no  technicalities.  The  proceedings  are  brief, 
simple,  and  informal,  the  parties  state  their  own  argu- 
ments and  examine  their  own  witnesses,  if  witnesses  are 
required;  the  village  elders,  being  practical  men,  with 
minute  local  knowledge,  speedily  arrive  at  a  very  good 
understanding  of  the  question  at  issue,  and  their  decisions, 
I  was  told,  have  been  generally  deemed  satisfactory.  The 
disputants  can,  if  they  please,  seek  a  further  remedy  in 
the  legal  tribunals ;  but,  as  a  rule,  they  are  quite  content 


IN   THE   VILLAGES  343 

to  abide  by  the  verdict  of  the  Panchayat.  This  interest- 
ing and  valuable  Patiala  experiment  has  been  successful 
beyond  the  expectations  of  its  originator ;  and  though  it 
has  only  been  in  operation  a  couple  of  years  it  has  saved 
the  villagers  many  thousands  of  rupees,  which  otherwise 
would  assuredly  have  gone  to  the  lawyers  and  the  court 
officials.  The  system  might  advantageously  be  adopted 
in  the  provinces  under  our  own  direct  control.  Next  to 
releasing  them  from  the  exactions  of  the  usurer,  no  greater 
benefit  could  be  conferred  on  the  Indian  landowners  and 
cultivators  than  that  of  inducing  them  not  to  waste  their 
energies  and  their  substance  in  the  law-courts. 


344  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 


CHAPTEK  XXIV 
THE   PEESENT  AND  THE  FUTUEE 

When  I  was  in  Calcutta  I  took  care  to  read  those  news- 
papers which  appealed  specially  to  native  'patriotic' 
sentiment.  Some  of  these  journals  wrote  in  a  very 
animated  strain  on  the  wrongs  of  the  ' Indian  people' 
and  the  means  by  which  it  was  thought  they  might  be 
alleviated : 

The  situation  is  critical  indeed,  but  we  must  ever  bear 
in  mind  that  the  honour  of  India  is  at  present  '  in  our 
keeping.'  We  have  already  given  unmistakable  proofs  of 
our  capacity  for  organisation  and  sustained  work.  But 
we  must  end  as  we  have  begun  with  an  unshaken  resolu- 
tion and  a  firm  determination.  In  the  name  of  our  beloved 
country  and  for  her  sacred  cause  we  would  urge  our 
countrymen  who  have  been  forced  to  enter  into  this  heroic 
struggle  and  have  had  to  go  to  the  extreme  length  of  boy- 
cotting foreign  goods  to  persevere  and  they  are  bound  to 
succeed.  We  cannot  more  fittingly  conclude  than  with  the 
stirring  words  of  the  hero — 

'  Charge,  Chester,  charge !    On,  Stanley,  on  ! ' 

The  passage  is  worth  giving,  not  only  as  a  pleasing 
example  of  babu  journalistic  style,  but  also  because  of 
the  sentiment  it  embodies.  When  I  turned  from  the 
editorial  to  the  advertisement  columns  of  these  Bengal 
newspapers,  I  came  upon  various  illuminating  notices : 

Patronise  mother-country  by  purchasing  country-made 
goods.  .  .  .  Essence  White  Eose,  12  annas  ;  Otto-de- 
Eose,  no  way  inferior  to  English  and  French  ones,  Es  1.4. 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE  345 

We  beg  to  inform  patriotic  public  that  all  sorts  of 
country-made  dhoties,  saries,  chaddars,  bed-sheets,  coat- 
ings, shirtings,  &c,  are  sold  here  at  a  very  fixed  and 
moderate  price. 

Buy  the  Swadeshi  ulsters,  the  strongest,  the  beauti- 
fullest,  the  best. 

The  Swadeshi  movement — the  agitation  for  encourag- 
ing Indian  home  industries  by  abstaining  from  the 
purchase  of  imported  manufactured  goods — has  attracted 
comparatively  little  interest  in  this  country,  nor  do  many 
Anglo-Indians  seem  to  attach  much  importance  to  it.  It 
is  considered  sufficient  to  dismiss  it  as  merely  the  work 
of  disaffected  and  discontented  native  politicians.  These 
persons  have  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  it.  But  it  is 
worth  consideration  all  the  same. 

The  most  remarkable  thing  about  advertisements  such 
as  those  just  quoted  is  that  they  should  have  appeared  in 
newspapers  mainly  read  by  natives  of  India.  The  Swadeshi 
agitation,  in  the  startling  modernity  alike  of  its  aims  and 
its  methods,  is  symptomatic  of  the  changes  which  are 
passing  over  the  country.  In  the  movement  itself  there  is 
a  good  deal  which  should  command  the  sympathy  of  many 
Englishmen  of  these  Tariff  Keform  days.  That  Indians 
should  be  anxious  to  foster  and  encourage  Indian  in- 
dustries can  scarcely  be  deemed  unnatural  or  blameworthy. 
If  the  patriotic  Briton  may  legitimately  be  exhorted  to 
consume  British-made  matches  and  cigarettes,  we  need 
not  complain  when  public-spirited  Hindus  are  urged  to 
1  patronise  mother-country  •  by  perfuming  themselves  with 
the  local  '  Otto-de-Bose,'  and  clothing  themselves  in 
indigenous  ulsters. 

In  his  presidential  address,  delivered  at  the  first  annual 
meeting  of  the  Industrial  Conference,  held  at  Benares  in 
December  1905,  Mr.  Komesh  Chunder  Dutt,  C.I.E.,  a  dis- 
tinguished native  administrator  and  publicist,  who  has 


346  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

held  high  office  in  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  dwelt  effect- 
ively on  this  analogy.  *  The  Swadeshi  movement/  he  said, 
*  is  one  which  all  nations  on  earth  are  seeking  to  adopt  in 
the  present  day.  Mr.  Chamberlain  is  seeking  to  adopt 
it  by  a  system  of  Protection;  Mr.  Balfour  seeks  to 
adopt  it  by  a  scheme  of  Eetaliation.  France,  Germany, 
the  United  States,  and  all  the  British  Colonies  adopt  it 
by  building  up  a  wall  of  prohibitive  duties.' 

*  We  have  no  control,'  continued  the  speaker,  '  over 
our  fiscal  legislation,  and  we  adopt  the  Swadeshi  scheme 
therefore  by  a  laudable  resolution  to  use  our  home  manu- 
factures, as  far  as  practicable,  in  preference  to  foreign 
manufactures.  I  see  nothing  that  is  sinful,  nothing  that 
is  hurtful  in  this ;  I  see  much  that  is  praiseworthy  and 
much  that  is  beneficial.  It  will  certainly  foster  and  en- 
courage our  industries,  in  which  the  Indian  Government 
has  always  professed  the  greatest  interest.'  And  on  the 
same  occasion,  in  language  which  has  a  very  familiar  ring, 
Mr.  Dutt  said :  ■  Gentlemen,  we  will  not  consent  to  see 
our  country  made  a  land  of  raw  produce  or  a  dumping- 
ground  for  the  manufactures  of  other  nations.' 

It  may  be  said  that  Mr.  Dutt  and  all  his  friends  of 
the  Congress  belong  to  the  educated  de-Orientalised  class 
of  Indians  who  are  out  of  touch  with  the  people,  and 
have  no  real  influence  with  them.  Let  us  look  then  to 
another  quarter.  Three  months  before  this  speech  was 
delivered  there  was  a  great  meeting  at  the  Kalighat 
Temple  in  Calcutta.  Over  fifty  thousand  persons  were 
present,  and  they  were  so  little  emancipated  from  the  prac- 
tices and  tenets  of  Hinduism  that  most  of  them  had 
the  vermilion  symbol  of  the  goddess  painted  on  their  fore- 
heads by  the  priests.  To  this  assemblage  of  worshippers 
the  chief  Brahman,  or  High  Priest  of  the  Temple,  recited 
a  commandment  or  rule  of  conduct  to  the  following 
effect :    *  Worship  your  country  above  all  other  duties, 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE      347 

give  up  sectarianism,  religions  differences,  animosity,  and 
selfishness,  perform  all  you  promise,  serving  your  country 
and  devoting  your  lives  to  the  relief  of  her  distress.' 
And  the  whole  assemblage  then  took  a  solemn  pledge, 
which  has  been  rendered  into  English  in  these  terms : 
1  We  swear  in  the  holy  presence  of  the  Goddess  Kali,  in 
this  sacred  place,  that  so  far  as  practicable  we  will  not 
use  imported  goods,  nor  will  we  buy  articles  in  foreign 
shops  which  are  available  in  native  shops,  nor  buy  any 
article  made  by  foreigners  which  can  be  made  by  our 
own  countrymen.'  In  the  West,  religion  and  politics 
have  often  gone  hand  in  hand.  The  East,  adopting  our 
own  methods,  carries  the  conjunction  into  other  fields. 
India,  impressed  by  the  example  of  China,  invokes  reli- 
gious sentiment  in  aid  of  industrial  protectionism,  and 
applies  both  to  the  distinctly  modern  machinery  of  the 
boycott. 

Swadeshi,  however,  aims  at  political  as  well  as 
economic  objects,  and  behind  it  all  looms  dimly  a  vague 
Nationalist  movement.  The  notion  of  expressing  re- 
sentment, over  the  partition  of  Bengal  into  two  adminis- 
trative provinces,  by  refusing  to  buy  Lancashire  cottons 
and  Nottingham  hosiery  may  have  seemed  to  many  people 
at  home  merely  absurd.  Undoubtedly  it  had  its  grotesque 
side ;  as  when  highly  educated  Bombay  Brahmans,  Cam- 
bridge graduates  some  of  them,  were  to  be  found  making 
a  public  bonfire  of  their  English  collars  and  waistcoats, 
to  an  accompaniment  of  invocations  addressed  to  Shivaji, 
the  great  Mahratta  raider,  in  order  to  declare  their  sym- 
pathy with  their  persecuted  brethren  on  the  other  side  of 
the  continent.  It  may  not  mean  very  much,  this  alliance 
between  Bengali  babudom  and  Mahratta  Brahmanism; 
but  it  points  to  that  nascent  conjunction  of  the  articulate 
classes  throughout  India  which  is  one  of  the  signs  of  the 
times. 


348  A  VISION   OF  INDIA 

There  is  no  order  or  body  of  men  entitled  to  act  and 
speak  for  the  *  Indian  nation/  which  does  not  exist  and 
never  has  existed.  Deep  and  wide  are  still  the  racial, 
religious,  linguistic,  and  geographical  differences  in  that 
patchwork  of  humanity  which  we  have  coloured  red  on 
the  map  of  Asia.  But  while  we  do  well  to  take  note  of 
these  elements  of  division,  let  us  also  not  forget  that  a 
certain  consciousness  of  identity  is  beginning  to  make  itself 
perceptible  through  the  mass.  There  is  little  in  common 
between  the  various  races  and  sects — except  that  they  are 
all  Asiatics.  Divided  among  themselves,  they  are  yet 
faintly  realising  the  existence,  or  the  imagined  existence,  of 
a  solidarity,  a  unity,  which  marks  them  off  from  Europe 
and  the  white  peoples  in  general.  The  victory  of  a  team 
of  Sikhs  or  Eajputs  over  an  English  regiment  at  polo  is 
acclaimed  with  delight  by  Parsis  and  Bengalis  and  Punjab 
Mohammedans  and  Madrassi  Christians;  which  is  as  if 
Sicilian  peasants  should  rejoice  over  the  defeat  of  an 
American  crew  by  Leander  at  Henley.  There  is  an  in- 
definite Pan-Indian  sentiment  in  the  air,  highly  nebulous, 
or  even  gaseous,  at  present,  which  might  assume  a  more 
tangible  form  under  the  pressure  of  events  in  the  near 
future. 

We  have  been  preparing  the  ground  ourselves  in  all 
sorts  of  ways.  We  have  given  India  what  it  never 
enjoyed  until  within  the  past  half-century :  to  wit,  peace, 
absolute  internal  tranquillity,  security  for  life,  property, 
and  the  fruits  of  industry ;  we  have  given  it  the  universal 
rule  of  law.  We  have  welded  the  sub-continent  into 
one  by  means  of  swift  communication  by  canals,  bridges, 
roads,  railways,  and  telegraphs. 

Before  the  Mutiny  it  meant  a  long  and  difficult 
pilgrimage  for  a  man  from  the  South  to  reach  the  North, 
or  for  a  Bengali,  let  us  say,  to  make  acquaintance  with 
the  Punjab.    Lord  Lawrence  told  Sir  John  Strachey  that 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE  349 

when  he  was  a  young  man  he  was  thought  to  have  per- 
formed an  extraordinary  feat  because,  travelling  day  and 
night,  he  reached  Delhi  a  fortnight  after  leaving  Calcutta. 
Any  native  can  now  accomplish  the  journey  in  thirty 
hours  for  a  very  few  rupees.  Thus  India,  still  sundered 
as  it  is  by  caste  and  class  and  race,  is  beginning  to  draw 
together  in  a  manner  which  never  could  have  been  pos- 
sible in  the  earlier  ages.  Ideas  circulate  as  well  as  human 
beings.  That  which  is  said  or  written  in  Poona  to-day 
may  be  known  in  Peshawar  and  Travancore  to-morrow. 
The  results  are  for  the  moment  seen  most  clearly  among 
the  educated  minority,  whom  we  have  taught  in  our 
schools.  But  the  circle  is  extending,  and  in  course  of 
time  the  peasant  in  his  village  will  read  the  newspapers 
as  the  trader  in  the  towns  does  already. 

We  have  not  only  knitted  India  together  by  steam 
and  electricity :  we  have  also  used  the  same  agencies  to 
connect  it  with  the  alien  world.  Europeans  of  all  sorts, 
not  to  mention  Americans,  come  to  India,  and  some  of 
these  miscellaneous  visitors  and  sojourners  do  not  inspire 
the  native  mind  with  any  particular  respect.  At  the 
same  time  the  natives  themselves  are  travelling.  Many 
quite  humble  persons — coolies,  artisans,  Sikh  policemen, 
traders — have  been  far  afield,  to  China,  to  the  Straits, 
to  South  Africa,  to  Mauritius ;  others  besides  rajas  and 
students  for  the  Bar  have  found  their  way  to  Europe. 

Much  of  the  mystery  which  used  to  surround  us  has 
been  stripped  away.  Our  home  life,  our  politics,  our  faction 
struggles,  our  social  questions,  are  examined  with  keenly 
inquisitive  glances  by  many  intelligent  natives.  The 
Anglo-Indian  will  often  tell  one  that  these  investigators 
do  not  greatly  count :  they  are  only  '  Congress- wallahs,' 
more  or  less  denationalised  babblers,  of  no  real  import- 
ance. But,  even  if  that  be  true,  we  .must  remember  that 
such  persons  can  talk  and  write,  and  their  words  are  read 


350  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

and  heard  by  many  who  carry  more  weight  than  them- 
selves. 

Are  we  wholly  justified  in  concluding  that  modern 
Eadicalism  and  Socialism  deal  with  ideas  unintelligible 
to  the  masses  of  Indian  artisans  and  agriculturists? 
We  used,  I  remember,  to  say  the  same  thing  about 
Kussia  a  few  years  ago,  when  it  was  the  received  opinion 
that  the  professors  of  the  universities  and  the  '  intel- 
lectuals '  of  the  towns  could  not  make  the  echo  of  their 
voices  heard  in  the  villages.  Events  have  shown  that 
this  view  was  erroneous.  Our  belief  in  the  conservatism 
and  irresponsiveness  to  agitation  of  the  docile,  kindly, 
authority-loving  Indian  peasant  may  require  some  quali- 
fication. 

As  regards  the  educated  natives  themselves,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  we  are  steadily  adding  to  their 
numbers.  It  is  true  that  the  great  majority  of  the  Indian 
people  are  still  illiterate.  Only  one  man  in  ten  can  read 
and  write,  and  only  one  woman  in  a  hundred  and  forty- 
four  ;  and  if  we  exclude  the  large  towns  and  Burma  the 
proportion  will  be  far  lower.  The  cultivator,  in  his 
millions,  is  still  for  the  most  part  ignorant  of  all  book- 
learning.  When  he  wants  to  write  a  letter  he  goes  to  the 
village  scribe ;  he  casts  his  accounts  by  means  of  a  rough 
mental  arithmetic  and  a  good  memory. 

But  even  with  him  the  leaven  is  working.  Passing 
through  a  group  of  Punjab  villages  with  a  Settlement 
Officer  I  had  the  results  of  the  new  educational  pro- 
cesses brought  constantly  before  me.  Policemen,  retired 
soldiers  of  our  native  regiments,  village  accountants,  and 
minor  officials  of  the  various  public  services,  were  to  be 
found  everywhere ;  all  these  persons  had  been  given  a 
thin  wash  of  elementary  instruction,  sufficient,  in  any 
case,  to  enable  them  to  read  the  vernacular  newspapers. 
Scattered  about  pretty  freely  were  men  who  had  begun  to 


THE  PKESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE      351 

ascend  the  rungs  of  the  social  ladder  by  means  of  a 
smattering  of  the  higher  education. 

One  would  meet  in  almost  every  hamlet  a  com- 
paratively well-dressed  individual,  who  spoke  English, 
and  could  converse  with  intelligence  on  various  sub- 
jects. He  might  be  the  son  of  a  village  tradesman  or 
a  small  yeoman  ;  but  he  had  been  sent  to  one  of  the 
provincial  colleges,  and  had  qualified  for  a  post  in  the 
bureaucratic  hierarchy,  a  clerkship  in  the  revenue  depart- 
ment, or  the  public  works,  or  on  the  railways.  If  he  were 
quick  at  learning  and  had  some  taste  for  books,  he  might 
go  higher.  He  would  emerge  with  a  degree  and  ambi- 
tions. He  might  become  a  pleader,  and  attain  to  a 
large  practice  and  affluence.  Or  he  might  enter  the 
judicial  service,  and  become  a  subordinate  judge,  perhaps 
eventually  to  reach  the  bench  of  the  High  Court. 

The  probability  is  that  he  would  do  none  of  these 
things.  He  would  go  to  swell  the  multitude  of  disap- 
pointed educated  men  whom  the  Indian  colleges  and 
universities  are  annually  manufacturing.  And  such  edu- 
cation as  he  had  received  would  not  have  tended  to 
render  his  discontent  less  poignant,  or  to  remove  that 
sense  of  grievance,  which  so  often  finds  expression  in 
the  native  journals,  written  and  edited  as  they  are  by  men 
of  his  class  and  kind. 

The  *  higher  education '  in  India  has  been  upon  the 
wrong  lines  from  the  outset.  When  it  was  first  seriously 
taken  in  hand  in  the  'thirties  of  the  last  century,  it  was 
a  question  whether  the  basis  of  study  should  be  English 
literature  and  history,  or  the  classical  Eastern  languages, 
Persian,  Arabic,  and  Sanskrit.  But  those  were  the  days 
of  the  Manchester  School  and  middle-class  Liberalism, 
when  things  ancient  and  things  unfamiliar  were  treated 
with  contempt.  And,  as  it  happened,  the  most  brilliant 
and  cocksure  of  all  middle-class  English  Liberals  was  a 


352  A  VISION  OF  INDIA 

member  of  the  Governor-General's  Council  at  the  critical 
moment.  Macaulay,  in  1835,  clinched  the  question  with 
a  slashing,  dashing  Minute,  in  which  he  tore  the  learning 
and  pseudo-science  of  the  East  to  rags  and  plumped  for 
1  sound  philosophy  and  true  history/  as  embodied  in  our 
own  literature. 

And  so  it  is  on  *  English '  that  the  youthful  Hindu 
or  Mohammedan  is  encouraged  to  spend  laborious  nights 
and  days.  Mathematics,  Natural  Science,  the  various 
classical  languages  (Latin  and  Greek,  as  well  as  the 
Eastern  tongues),  are  admitted,  and  some  candidates 
do  in  fact  study  them.  But  the  vast  majority  of  our 
native  graduates  have  been  nurtured  on  English  litera- 
ture, on  European  history,  and  on  the  odd  hotch-potch 
of  superficial  ethics  and  controversial  politics,  which  for 
academic  purposes  is  labelled  Mental  and  Moral  Science 
and  Political  Economy. 

I  have  before  me  the  prospectus  of  the  Faculty  of 
Arts  in  one  of  the  Indian  universities.  I  find  that  the 
candidate  can  obtain  his  B.A.  degree,  if  he  can  write  an 
essay  in  English  on  *  a  subject  of  general  interest,'  and  if 
he  shows  a  *  competent  knowledge  '  of  English  literature. 
In  this  latter  branch  of  study  his  '  special  subjects '  are 
King  Lear  and  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  Milton's  Comus, 
Mrs.  Craik's  John  Halifax  Gentleman,  Messrs.  Kowe  and 
Webb's  Selections  from  Tennyson,  and  Burke's  Reflections 
on  the  French  Revolution.  If  the  aspirant  takes  up 
1  Philosophy,'  he  can  offer  Mill's  Utilitarianism,  Muir- 
head's  Ethics,  a  selection  from  Berkeley,  and  Professor 
Flint's  Theism.  For  a  third  group  of  subjects  he  may 
submit  '  Political  Science,'  as  expounded  by  the  late  Sir 
John  Seeley,  and  by  an  American  professor  who  has 
written  a  handbook  on  *  Practical  Politics  ' ;  or  '  Modern 
European  History  '  in  Freeman's  General  Sketch,  Miche- 
let's  Precis  de  VHistoire  Moderne  and  Professor  Oman's 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE  353 

England  in  the  Nineteenth  Century ;  or,  again,  ■  Political 
Economy,'  according  to  the  somewhat  diverse  views  of 
Mr.  Walker,  Professor  Marshall,  and  Mr.  L.  L.  Price. 

Now  imagine  a  young  Bengali  student,  brought  up  by 
the  family  Brahman  on  the  family  morals,  or  fresh  from 
the  village :  imagine  a  young  Moslem,  who  has  sat  at  the 
feet  of  the  moulvie,  left  to  browse  on  all  this  miscellaneous 
fodder,  this  queer  jumble  of  poetry,  history,  fiction,  and 
the  second-rate  opinions  of  mostly  second-rate  men  on 
morals,  theology,  and  politics.  What  a  strange  education 
has  our  swarthy  B.A.  received,  when  he  goes  back  to  his 
kindred,  away  in  the  jungles,  or  on  the  plains,  or  in  a 
back  lane  off  some  reeking  bazaar,  with  his  head  whirl- 
ing with  Portia  and  Cordelia  and  the  Idylls  of  the 
King,  with  Berkeley  and  Michelet  and  John  Halifax 
Gentleman,  with  the  Keform  Bill  and  British  and  Ame- 
rican economics,  with  a  Scotch  Calvinist  view  of  Theism 
and  a  philosophical  English  Badical  theory  of  the 
State ! 

His  development  has  naturally  been  one-sided.  A 
single  set  of  ideas,  imperfectly  assimilated,  is  likely  to 
remain  with  him  after  his  hasty  and  fragmentary  debauch 
on  history,  poetry,  and  controversy.  What  wonder  if 
youngsters  fed  on  Burke  and  Mill  and  Milton,  and  en- 
couraged to  '  get  up '  our  faction  struggles  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  and  to  dabble  in  a  literature  '  saturated 
with  party  politics ! — what  wonder  if  they  emerge  with 
a  predisposition  to  regard  the  autocratic  rule  under  which 
they  live  as  an  abomination  ?  We  are  surprised  that  the 
educated  native  so  often  takes  to  agitation  and  subversive 
politics.  What  else  can  we  expect?  Our  system  has 
unsettled  most  of  his  ideas,  and  given  him  in  exchange 
a  system  of  ethics  which  can  mean  nothing  to  him,  and 
an  admiration  for  eminent  men  who  were  mostly  '  agin 
the  Government,'  and  who  were  in  general  enthusiastic 

A  A 


354  A   VISION  OF  INDIA 

champions  of  the  political  liberty  which  no  Asiatic  com- 
munity has  ever  yet  experienced. 

What  India  needs  is  modern  education  in  the  true 
sense  :  that  is  to  say,  modern  science.  The  literature  and 
history  of  alien  countries  and  a  remote  and  unfamiliar 
civilisation  are  not  wanted ;  even  if  they  do  no  harm, 
they  cannot  be  of  much  use.  We  ought  to  be  teaching 
the  clever  young  native  mathematics  (for  which  he  has 
often  a  great  natural  aptitude),  physics,  biology,  chemistry, 
geology,  and  applied  mechanics  ;  we  ought  to  have  first- 
class  technical  colleges,  and  plenty  of  them,  and  endea- 
vour to  substitute  scientific  knowledge  for  the  study  of 
words  and  phrases.  If  we  could  send  out  of  the  colleges 
and  schools  a  larger  number  of  doctors,  chemists,  engineers, 
architects,  technologists,  and  trained  industrial  experts, 
and  fewer  lawyers,  journalists,  office-seekers,  and  place- 
hunters,  we  should  give  the  people  of  India  much  better 
reason  to  be  grateful  for  the  higher  educational  facilities 
we  have  placed  within  their  reach. 

What  is  to  be  the  future  of  India  ?  What  will  our  own 
position  be  in  the  coming  time?  How  long  will  it  be 
possible  for  a  remote  and  somewhat  inattentive  European 
democracy  to  maintain  an  autocratic  control  over  three 
hundred  millions  of  Asiatics  ?  These  are  questions  which 
can  scarcely  fail  to  occur  to  any  person  of  intelligence 
when  he  makes  some  survey,  however  hasty  and  super- 
ficial, of  our  Eastern  Empire.  In  that  Empire  itself  he 
will  seldom  find  them  asked,  and  still  less  often  answered. 
The  English  in  India  are,  for  the  most  part,  too  busy  to 
think.  They  have  their  day's  work  to  do ;  the  vineyard 
is  large  and  the  labourers  are  few.  The  Anglo-Indian  is, 
as  a  rule,  content  to  toil  strenuously  in  his  own  corner  of 
the  field,  to  make  his  money  or  earn  his  promotion  as 
speedily  as  may  be,  and   go  home.     The  future  of  India 


C    SI  «•«■ 

c  c  c  c  c 


c  t  c  c  c 


C  (    c  c 


THE  PRESENT   AND   THE   FUTURE  355 

commonly  interests  him  but  little.  A  sailor,  paid  off  at 
the  end  of  a  voyage,  does  not  greatly  concern  himself  with 
the  subsequent  career  of  the  ship  he  has  left. 

But  the  few  who  have  leisure  and  inclination  to  look 
about  them  are  not  inclined  to  give  a  definite  and  succinct 
reply  to  such  interrogations  as  those  just  suggested.  The 
wisest  men  speak  least  dogmatically.  They  know  how 
many  factors  there  are  in  the  problem  and  how  few  of 
them  we  fully  understand.  Great  changes  are  likely  to 
pass  over  India  before  this  century  has  grown  from  child- 
hood to  middle  age ;  but  what  form  these  will  take,  or 
whither  they  will  lead,  is  not  as  yet  in  the  least  clear. 
The  Awakening  of  Asia  may  affect  India  more  slowly  than 
the  countries  farther  East,  but  in  the  end  perhaps  not 
less  decisively. 

Those  who  imagine  they  know  something  of  that 
mysterious  crucible  of  unfamiliar  ideas,  the  native  mind, 
believe  that  it  has  been  stirred  tempestuously  by  the 
sudden  and  rapid  emergence  of  Japan.  The  Manchurian 
war  was  followed  closely  in  India ;  in  every  bazaar  its 
details  were  known  and  canvassed  with  absorbing  interest. 
All  over  the  Eastern  world,  from  the  China  Sea  to  the 
Balkans,  the  success  of  the  Japanese  has  been  regarded 
as  a  triumph  of  Orientalism.  The  sentiment  has  been 
strongly  felt  in  India.  That  Eussia  has  nothing  in 
common  with  England,  that  she  is  indeed  our  frequent 
rival  and  potential  enemy,  is  ignored. 

The  point  which  has  impressed  itself  on  the  popular 
imagination  is  that  an  European  Power  has  gone  down 
before  an  Asiatic ;  white  soldiers  and  sailors  have  been 
worsted  by  those  of  a  warmer  hue;  the  East  has  pre- 
vailed over  the  West  in  fair  fight.  To  the  Indians,  who 
do  not  draw  fine  distinctions  between  one  Occidental 
people  and  another,  it  seems  that  the  sahib-log,  their 
rulers   and   governors,  have  shown  themselves  no  more 

A  A2 


356  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

efficient,  when  it  comes  to  the  ultimate  trial  of  strength 
and  capacity,  than  those  whom  they  choose  to  regard  as 
their  own  kindred.  What  has  been  accomplished  by  one 
Asiatic  people,  so  it  is  thought,  may  be  repeated  by 
another. 

The  set-back  sustained  by  Eussia  may  be  politically 
beneficial  to  us  in  certain  respects;  but  it  has  reacted 
upon  our  position  in  Asia,  and  somewhat  weakened  that 
prestige,  based  on  a  general  acquiescence  in  the  military 
superiority  of  Europe,  on  which  in  the  last  resort  our 
Empire  of  the  East  depends.  And  it  has  imbued  our 
subjects  with  a  new  self-confidence,  a  growing  pride  of 
race,  which  may  have  important  consequences. 

We  are  pouring  the  new  wine  of  Western  progress 
into  the  Eastern  vessels.  Modern  industrialism  is  coming 
in — slowly,  it  is  true,  but  quite  perceptibly.  India,  with 
its  abundant  natural  resources  and  its  reservoir  of  cheap 
labour,  must  sooner  or  later  take  its  place  among  the 
notable  manufacturing  countries  of  the  world.  It  has 
assimilated  the  factory  system ;  and  the  process  has 
begun  by  which  the  villager,  the  tiller  of  the  soil,  the 
small  independent  cultivator,  is  turned  into  a  unit  in  the 
urban  labour  army.  The  country  needs  capital;  but 
capital  is  coming  from  abroad,  and  the  native  is  even 
beginning  to  relax  his  caution  and  supply  it  himself  out 
of  his  immense  hoarded  store.  Industrialism  is  creating 
new  wants  and  a  new  standard  of  living ;  but  it  is  sowing 
and  germinating  new  ideas  as  well. 

Whether  these  movements  will  bring  the  rulers  and 
the  ruled  closer  together  or  draw  them  further  apart  is, 
again,  another  question  which  few  would  essay  to  answer 
with  any  confidence.  Some  people  hold  that  an  Indian 
who  takes  to  Western  ways  and  habits  must  naturally 
begin  to  look  at  life  from  a  Western  standpoint.  Others 
warn  us  that  an  Oriental  may  learn  all  about  the  use  of 


THE   PRESENT  AND   THE   FUTURE  357 

a  magazine-rifle,  a  dynamo,  a  motor-car;  he  may  play 
cricket  and  ride  a  bicycle,  and  sit  on  a  committee ;  he 
may  do  all  these  things  and  yet  remain  an  Oriental  at 
heart.  But  in  these  days  we  have  seen  some  reason  to 
distrust  broad  generalisations  about  race  and  nationality ; 
it  may  be  that  '  environment '  is  more  than  either ;  and  it 
is  even  possible  that  the  heart  and  thinking  apparatus, 
which  work  under  a  brown  skin,  are  not  in  essentials  so 
different  as  we  used  to  believe  from  those  which  are  cased 
by  a  white  integument. 

For  practical  purposes,  however,  the  question  of 
questions  is  one  that  is  not  often  spoken.  How  long 
shall  we  be  able  to  go  on  Europeanising,  industrialising, 
educating  the  Indian  native,  *  raising  him,'  as  we  put 
it,  'to  our  level,'  and  yet  keep  him  under  our  paternal 
despotism  ?  Some  pessimists,  I  know,  think  that  we  are 
sounding  the  knell  of  our  supremacy :  we  have  been 
digging  our  own  graves  ;  we  are  teaching  the  native  so 
much  that  he  will  presently  learn  to  do  without  us. 

To  a  certain  extent  this  is  true.  As  time  goes  on, 
no  doubt  we  shall  find  the  natives  doing  many  things  for 
themselves  which  we  have  done  for  them.  The  adminis- 
tration of  the  country  is  largely  in  Indian  hands  already, 
and  I  suppose  we  must  look  forward  to  seeing  more  and 
more  educated  Asiatics  taking  responsible  office  in  the 
public-works  departments,  and  in  the  sanitary,  judicial, 
medical,  and  educational  branches,  until  eventually  we 
shall  have  little  left  for  Englishmen  but  a  few  of  the 
highest  posts  in  the  Army  and  the  Civil  Service. 

Such  a  result  has  been  long  foreseen,  and  it  has  been 
faced,  if  not  exactly  welcomed,  by  some  officials  of  the 
highest  capacity  and  experience.  Fifty  years  ago  Mount- 
stuart  Elphinstone  wrote : 

I  conceive  that  the  administration  of  all  the  depart- 
ments of  a  great  country  by  a  small  number  of  foreign 


358  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

visitors,  in  a  state  of  isolation  produced  by  a  difference  in 
religion,  ideas,  and  manners,  which  cuts  them  off  from  all 
intimate  communion  with  the  people,  can  never  be  con- 
templated as  a  permanent  state  of  things.  I  conceive  also 
that  the  progress  of  education  among  the  natives  renders 
such  a  scheme  impracticable. 

Much  has  been  done  since  1850  to  give  the  natives  a 
larger  and  ever  larger  share  in  the  administration  of  the 
country.  The  European  bureaucracy  has  been  attenuated 
to  minute  proportions.  Yet  there  are  complaints  that  it 
is  still  excessive  in  quantity,  and  not  always  what  it 
should  be  in  quality.  On  this  point  some  intelligent 
native  gentlemen,  who  have  no  sympathy  with  the  plat- 
form extremists,  speak  wTith  emphasis. 

'Why,'  they  ask,  'should  you  make  us  pay  high 
salaries  to  second-rate  surveyors,  sanitary  and  medical 
officers,  educationists,  and  judges,  who  are  sent  out  to  us 
from  England,  when  we  could  supply  better  men  our- 
selves— men,  too,  who  would  work  for  lower  pay,  and 
who  understand  the  country  and  the  languages  ?  ' 

The  grievance  is  not  entirely  imaginary.  Our  superior 
bureaucracy — that  is  to  say,  the  few  hundred  executive 
officers  of  the  Indian  Civil  Service — still  deserves  the 
praise  so  freely  bestowed  upon  it ;  but  there  may  be  room 
for  improvement  even  in  the  I.C.S.  itself,  and  still  more 
so  in  some  of  the  other  departments.  India  is  not  so 
attractive  to  the  capable  young  Englishman  as  it  used 
to  be,  and  considerable  difficulty  is  found  in  getting  men 
with  a  good  professional  training  to  accept  posts  in  the 
technical  branches  of  the  administration. 

The  deficiency  is  most  marked  on  the  legal  side. 
Some  of  the  English  barristers  sent  out  from  home  to 
occupy  seats  on  the  benches  of  the  High  Courts  have 
been  notoriously  unfitted  for  positions  of  such  import- 
ance;   men  of   little  standing  in  their   profession,  who 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE      359 

could  hardly  have  been  appointed  to  a  county-court  judge- 
ship if  they  had  remained  in  England  ;  men  who,  in 
knowledge  of  the  law  and  judicial  capacity,  have  shown 
themselves  inferior  to  their  native  colleagues.  Even 
stronger  criticism  may  be  directed  against  some  of  the 
judges  of  the  local  tribunals.  The  Divisional  and 
District  Judges  are  civilian  magistrates  who  have  passed 
from  the  executive  into  the  judicial  ranks,  either  by  their 
own  desire  or  at  the  order  of  their  Governments. 

It  is  common  talk  in  India  that  many  of  these  gentle- 
men are  the  failures,  or  the  comparative  failures,  of  the 
service ;  for  the  executive  department  is  so  much  more 
interesting,  and  offers  so  much  wider  scope  for  important 
work  and  legitimate  ambition,  that  the  more  capable  offi- 
cials naturally  prefer  to  remain  in  it  if  they  can.  Some 
of  the  District  Judges,  it  is  true,  may  have  been  chosen 
because  they  exhibit  a  natural  aptitude  ;  but  even  then 
their  professional  qualifications  must  often  be  weak. 
They  can  hardly  ever  have  found  time  to  acquire  a 
regular  legal  training,  and  have  usually  picked  up  their 
law  in  the  course  of  their  magisterial  work  in  the 
districts. 

In  the  administration  of  criminal  justice,  where 
common-sense  and  quickness  of  decision  are  more  ser- 
viceable than  legal  learning,  they  do  very  well.  But 
in  civil  causes  their  lack  of  technical  knowledge  may 
sometimes  expose  them  to  invidious  comparison  with 
their  nominal  subordinates,  the  native  judges  of  the 
inferior  tribunals,  who  have  studied  law  at  Indian 
colleges  or  English  universities,  and  have  often  pre- 
pared themselves  for  the  bench  by  practice  at  the  bar. 
One  of  the  leading  English  barristers  in  India  told  me 
that  he  sometimes  found  considerable  difficulty  in  arguing 
before  the  Divisional  and  the  District  Courts  because  of 
the  ignorance  frequently  exhibited  on  the  bench.      He 


360  A   VISION   OF  INDIA 

went  so  far  as  to  declare  that  he  even  preferred,  if  the 
case  were  at  all  complicated,  to  lay  it  before  native  judges. 
*  They,  at  least,'  he  said,  *  are  lawyers,  and  can  under- 
stand a  legal  argument.' 

Our  method  of  appointing  judges  is  a  relic  of  the 
earlier,  pioneering,  unsettled  period  of  our  rule  in  India, 
if  it  is  not  merely  one  phase  of  our  superstitious  belief 
that  the  English  gentleman  of  high  character  is  capable 
of  performing  any  task  that  can  be  set  him.  Perhaps  the 
whole  of  the  Indian  service  is  suffering  in  some  degree 
from  the  effects  of  that  theory.  Character  is  invaluable ; 
but  it  is  not  a  substitute  for  expert  knowledge  in  a  settled 
civilised  community.  India  requires  plenty  of  trained 
specialists ;  and  if  we  do  not  supply  them  ourselves  in 
sufficient  quantity,  it  will  be  difficult  to  prevent  natives 
from  pushing  into  the  higher,  as  well  as  the  lower,  places 
themselves. 

In  commerce,  too,  the  natives  are  treading  on  our  heels. 
Much  of  the  banking,  the  supervision  of  manufactures, 
the  export  and  import  trade,  may  be  expected  to  pass  over 
to  them,  as  they  get  to  know  more  of  the  methods  of 
modern  commerce,  and  as  they  cease  to  require  the 
Englishman  to  act  as  their  intermediary  with  the  external 
mercantile  communities.  I  am  told  that  there  are  export 
houses  in  Calcutta,  even  now,  where  the  real  business  and 
financing,  the  placing  of  orders,  and  giving  of  credit,  are 
in  the  hands  of  the  Hindu  broker,  who  is  nominally  no 
more  than  the  firm's  agent  or  managing  clerk. 

In  due  course,  this  important  individual  will  get  into 
touch  with  foreign  buyers  himself,  he  will  have  his  own 
agents  and  correspondents  in  England  and  Germany,  and 
so  he  will  almost  be  able  to  dispense  with  the  assist- 
ance of  his  European  partners  and  ostensible  employers. 
What  the  Parsis  have  accomplished  in  Bombay,  the 
Hindus  and  Mohammedans  may  be  able  to  do  elsewhere. 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTURE      361 

Here  is  a  natural  Swadeshi  movement,  which  we  can 
hardly  counteract,  even  if  we  should  desire  to  do  so. 

It  does  not  follow  that  we  need  fear  it,  or  that  it  will 
be  fatal  to  our  political  predominance — so  long  as  our 
military  strength  remains  unimpaired,  and  so  long  as  we 
retain  control  of  the  supreme  administration.  That,  it 
must  be  remembered,  is  the  ultimate  source  of  our  power. 
Our  position  in  India  has  no  parallel  in  ancient  or  modern 
times ;  for  the  Eoman  Empire,  with  which  we  sometimes 
like  to  compare  it,  was  essentially  and  fundamentally  dis- 
similar. The  nearest  analogy  is  that  of  the  Manchus  in 
China ;  since  they,  like  ourselves,  are  a  small  body  of 
foreigners,  an  alien  official  colony,  able  to  rule  a  vast 
congeries  of  Eastern  peoples,  because  they  have  the 
threads  of  the  administration  in  their  hands.  Most 
Oriental  countries  have  been  governed  in  that  way,  though 
the  experiment  has  never  been  performed  on  such  a  scale 
as  in  India  and  in  China. 

The  point  that  differentiates  our  rule  from  that  of 
every  Eastern  dynasty  is  that  we  are  migrants,  not  settlers. 
It  is  to  some  extent  an  element  of  weakness  ;  but  it  is  also 
the  prime  and  main  source  of  our  efficiency  and  strength. 
In  all  the  other  cases,  the  masculine  conquering  race  has 
established  itself  in  the  country,  and  presently  it  has 
suffered  that  deterioration  which  seems,  as  if  by  a  law  of 
Nature,  to  overtake  every  despotic  monarchy  in  the  East. 
The  Moghuls  might  be  masters  of  India  to  this  hour  if 
they  could  have  bred  a  succession  of  Babers  and  Akbars  ; 
and  the  *  Nabobs  '  of  the  Company,  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  if  they  had  been  cut  off  from  home  and  allowed 
to  create  an  hereditary  oligarchy  in  India,  would  have 
degenerated  no  less  surely  than  their  predecessors.  It  is 
the  uniqueness  of  our  situation  that  we  can  supply  a  con- 
stant fresh  infusion  of  that  Northern  vigour,  which  has  so 
often  been   able  to  subdue  an  Eastern  people,  but  has 


362  A    VISION   OF   INDIA 

invariably  waned  and  weakened  when  it  has  settled  down 
to  govern  it. 

The  Manchus,  weak  and  corrupt  as  they  are,  have  held 
China  for  close  on  three  centuries.  There  seems  no  reason 
why  we  should  doubt  our  own  ability  to  maintain  our  rule 
in  India  for  an  indefinite  period,  if  we  do  not  shrink  from 
the  burden  and  if  we  remain  strong  enough  to  beat  back 
aggression  from  outside.  The  danger  that  threatens,  so 
far  as  it  is  not  a  military  danger,  may  develop  among 
ourselves  rather  than  among  our  subjects.  We  are  giving 
the  Indian  peoples  two  things  they  cannot  at  present  pro- 
vide for  themselves — a  capable  and  honest  central  govern- 
ment and  the  force  to  resist  anarchy  and  external  attack. 

These  are  great  benefits ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  they  are  recognised  by  the  majority  of  those  upon 
whom  they  are  conferred,  and  it  is  even  probable  that 
our  labours  will  be  less  appreciated  as  time  goes  on,  and 
as  a  larger  proportion  of  Asiatics  become  imbued  with 
a  feeling  of  racial  self-consciousness.  Even  now  it  is 
undeniable  that  there  is  a  rising  hostility  to  our  system 
of  beneficent  despotism  among  the  educated  classes 
throughout  the  country.  It  is  idle  to  ignore  the  fact ;  it 
is  equally  idle  to  endeavour  to  scold  it  down  by  brand- 
ing it  as  disloyal.  I  do  not  think  there  is  much  dis- 
loyalty even  among  the  agitators  of  the  platform  and 
the  native  press,  still  less  among  those  who  listen  to 
their  exhortations. 

The  journey  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  showed  clearly 
that  there  is  a  deep  and  widespread  attachment  to  the 
Imperial  House  among  the  Indian  people,  and  that  even 
where  there  is  discontent  with  the  mode  of  government 
there  is  no  feeling  against  the  Throne.  Nor,  I  imagine, 
is  there  any  hostility  to  the  Empire  and  the  Flag,  so  far 
as  the  meaning  of  these  terms  is  understood.  Calcutta, 
when  the  Prince  visited  it,  was  in  the  trough  of  a  furious 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  EUTURE      363 

agitation  against  the  partition  of  Bengal — an  agitation 
which  had,  on  one  occasion,  caused  every  native  shop  in 
the  city  to  be  closed  as  a  sign  of  mourning.  The  Viceroy 
and  the  new  Lieutenant-Governor  had  been  assailed  with 
the  most  virulent  abuse,  and  the  latter  official  could 
scarcely  have  driven  abroad  in  safety  without  an  escort 
of  cavalry.  Yet  when  the  Prince  appeared  among  this 
angry  populace  he  was  received  not  only  with  cordiality 
and  good-humour  but  even  with  demonstrative  enthusiasm. 

I  was  told  that  the  leading  agitators  had  themselves 
done  their  best  to  render  the  reception  favourable.  If  so, 
it  goes  to  show  that  they  were  anxious  to  relieve  them- 
selves and  their  movement  of  the  stigma  of  disloyalty. 
Some  of  these  native  politicians,  when  I  met  them  in  Cal- 
cutta and  Bombay,  assured  me  that  no  idea  of  secession 
or  separation  was  in  their  minds.  They  declared — and  I 
think  with  sincerity — that  it  was  no  part  of  their  object 
to  sever  the  bond  which  unites  India  to  the  British 
Empire  and  the  Monarchy.  They  know  well  enough  that 
*  the  people  of  India '  are  not  strong  enough  to  stand 
alone  in  the  world  and  resist  external  encroachment. 

But  they  do  think  that  they  are  rapidly  gaining  the 
strength  to  manage  their  own  affairs,  and  even  to  main- 
tain internal  cohesion,  with  little  or  no  aid  from  ourselves. 
They  believe  that  they  are  wise  and  capable  enough  for 
self-government  on  the  '  Colonial '  model ;  and  they  talk 
of  an  India,  converted  into  a  federation  of  autonomous 
states,  attached  to  the  Empire  by  the  link  of  an  Imperial 
Viceroy  or  Governor-General,  like  the  Commonwealth  of 
Australia.  This  is  the  ideal  or  the  illusion  cherished  by 
an  increasing  number  of  persons  who  write  and  talk  and 
influence  their  neighbours  in  most  of  the  Indian  provinces, 
and  we  must  make  our  account  with  it.  Impracticable 
as  it  may  be,  we  cannot  dismiss  it  brusquely  as  a  mere 
fantasy  best  treated  with  ridicule  or  contempt. 


364  A   VISION   OF   INDIA 

There  is  a  racy  and  rather  illuminative  story  which 
was  recently  going  the  rounds  of  the  Indian  clubs  and  mess- 
rooms.  It  concerns  a  certain  Indian  prince,  very  popular 
in  English  society,  a  veteran  soldier  and  sportsman, 
and  a  chief  among  one  of  the  great  fighting  peoples. 
To  him  a  highly  distinguished  personage  is  said  to  have 
put  a  question  which  is  more  easily  asked  than  answered  : 
'  Tell  me  frankly,  Maharaja,  what  you  think  would 
happen  if  we  were  to  leave  India  to-morrow.'  'If  you 
were  to  leave  India  to-morrow,'  replied  the  old  warrior, 
1  on  the  day  after  to-morrow  my  men  would  be  in 
the  saddle;  and  three  months  after  that,  there  would 
not  be  a  virgin  or  a  rupee  left  in  Lower  Bengal.' 

This  is  a  pithy  and  concise  summary  of  an  argument 
often  used  in  Anglo-Indian  circles  with  reference  to  the 
1  aspirations '  of  the  Bengalis  and  other  native  politicians. 
If  we  were  to  leave  India  to-morrow,  it  is  said,  what 
would  become  of  all  these  talking  and  writing  gentlemen? 
The  Afghans,  the  Gurkhas,  the  Dogras,  the  fierce 
Mohammedans  of  the  Punjab,  the  hill  tribesmen,  would 
sweep  down  upon  them  ;  the  Pathans  and  Afridis  and 
other  cut-throats  would  soon  make  short  work  of  their 
'  self-government,'  not  to  mention  their  lives  and  wives 
and  property.  The  force  of  the  argument  is  undeniable 
when  one  considers  the  history  of  India  and  the  ethno- 
logical distribution  of  its  population.  But  it  is  not  quite 
conclusive  of  the  matter  in  hand. 

'  If  we  were  to  leave  India  to-morrow '  many  things 
would  happen.  But  we  are  not  going  to  leave  India 
to-morrow.  We  shall  stay  there  and  carry  on  our 
work  in  spite  of  its  difficulties.  There  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  these  will  be  less  serious  in  the  future  than 
they  have  been  in  the  past.  The  task  of  governing  India 
may  indeed  become  more  arduous  rather  than  easier,  as 
we  have  to  deal  with  a  rising  discontent  among  the  pro- 
gressive, articulate,  semi-educated  classes,  perhaps  an  in- 


THE  PRESENT  AND  THE   FUTURE  365 

creasing  volume  of  agitation.  We  are  in  India  to-day, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in  the  past,  for  the 
benefit  of  its  people  much  more  than  our  own.  But  we 
must  not  be  surprised  if  ambitious  men  among  our  sub- 
jects, inspired  by  a  sentiment  which  cannot  be  deemed 
wholly  ignoble  or  egotistic,  chafe  under  the  government 
of  aliens  and  do  not  recognise  their  own  incapacity  to 
replace  it.  Danger,  perhaps  even  disaster,  may  arise, 
if  this  restlessness  on  the  one  side  is  met  only  by  im- 
patience or  neglect  on  the  other.  Even  now,  the  general 
indifference  of  Englishmen  to  all  that  concerns  India  is 
amazing  and  ominous.  The  masses,  who  are  the  real 
rulers  of  India's  rulers,  seem  content  to  remain  ignorant, 
the  middle  classes,  except  so  far  as  they  have  friends  or 
relatives  in  the  country,  uninterested.  It  has  often  been 
said  that  the  reluctance  of  Parliament  to  devote  itself 
seriously  to  Indian  affairs  has  been  politically  valuable, 
since  it  has  left  these  matters  to  be  settled  by  the  men 
who  understand  them,  the  men  on  the  spot.  But  a 
sovereign  democracy  cannot  permanently  delegate  its 
powers.  It  must  know  what  is  being  done  in  its  name, 
and  why  that  is  done  ;  particularly  when  it  is  called  upon, 
for  high  and  noble  ends,  it  is  true,  but  with  small  appa- 
rent or  immediate  reward,  to  exercise  unsleeping  vigilance, 
to  incur  weighty  responsibilities,  to  submit  to  ill -requited 
sacrifices,  and  to  cope  with  harassing  problems,  increasing 
in  gravity  and  complexity  as  the  years  roll  on. 

Will  our  Democracy  prove  equal  to  the  burden  ?  That 
is  the  real  question  on  which  the  future  of  our  Eastern 
Empire  turns.  For  the  worst  perils  which  threaten  it 
are  not  likely  to  become  formidable  in  India  itself,  unless 
they  are  assisted  by  incautious  haste  or  negligent  weak- 
ness at  home. 

THE   END. 


V 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


SEP  16  1966     e 


RECEIVED 

SEP6-'66-4P^RU 

LOAN  DEPT. 


i  \i 


1982 

REC  CI'  JUN     4  19^4 


m    81967  6 

RECEIVE  J» 

MAY10V:7-0 
LOANoer 

LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


Z000 


3? 


M97463 


lien 


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